My law partner and I are adjunct professors at GW Law School, where we teach Asylum and Refugee Law (yes, we are basically one-trick ponies). This week, we learned that a scheduled debate called “Immigration 2018: Words Matter” was effectively canceled after one of the panelists was dis-invited due to his affiliation with the Center for Immigration Studies (“CIS”), an organization that some consider a hate group.
Andrew Arthur: Master debater
The event was billed as a “debate on the words used in the immigration debate.” Panelists were to discuss “words and phrases like maras, chain migration, criminal alien, and others.” The controversial panelist was Andrew Arthur, a Resident Fellow at CIS, and a former Immigration Judge (and a GW alum). However, Judge Arthur’s association with CIS proved controversial and ultimately led to the dis-invitation.
I can’t really discuss the situation at GW, as I don’t know all the details. Instead, I want to talk more generally about why it is so important for immigrant advocates to engage with groups like CIS.
Let’s start with the organization itself. CIS bills itself as “low-immigration, pro-immigrant.” It wants to restrict the number of foreigners we allow into the United States. In contrast, the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled CIS an anti-immigrant hate group due to its founder’s alleged ties to white supremacists and because it circulates writings by supposed white nationalists and anti-Semites.
As you might guess, I’m not a huge fan of CIS either, and I have found some of their writers to be intellectually dishonest and needlessly divisive (though at least one of their writers thinks I’m a babe, which is quite flattering). However, my overall observation of the organization is that it is making important contributions to the immigration debate, and that its policy positions are generally within the mainstream of our society (unfortunately). For these reasons, I believe CIS’s viewpoints deserve serious attention from those of us who care about immigration policy. Also, I’m skeptical of the SPLC’s designation of CIS as a hate group. While I support the SPLC and believe it does vital work, I think designating CIS as a hate group is a stretch.
Further, even if you have a lower tolerance for hate than me, and you believe CIS is a hate group, that does not seem a good enough reason to exclude its writers from the immigration debate. CIS is in-like-Flynn with the current Administration, and so its views really can’t be ignored. Also, there are many Americans—including many in the main stream media–who do not view CIS as a hate group, and who pay attention to its opinions. Thus, we need to listen to the organization’s views in order to better understand people who seek to restrict immigration.
I’m not arguing that we need to engage with all individuals or groups that seem hateful. Some people are simply beyond the pale (David Duke, Richard Spencer) or exist merely to provoke reactions rather than advance any real policy agenda (Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos). Such people have little to contribute to any real discussion on immigration (or anything else), and exist mostly just to promote themselves. Giving them a platform is not productive. But that’s not CIS, and when we fail to engage with legitimate and/or influential organizations, the quality of our national debate is diminished.
There are other reasons to engage with CIS as well. For one, when we fail to engage, we effectively abandon the field to the opposition. While it may seem a principled stand to refuse to debate with a “hate group,” that’s not how the majority of Americans–who only pay periodic attention to immigration issues–will interpret the situation.
Indeed, we need to be present when groups like CIS distort the facts, which they sometimes do, and we also need to articulate alternatives to their restrictionist policy proposals. We cannot correct the record or advocate for our own vision unless we are part of the conversation.
There’s also the matter of scoring political points. While I dislike the sophistry of cheap “point scoring” in our political debates, this is still part of the equation. Dis-inviting a group like CIS only plays into the organization’s hands. What will they and their allies say about a dis-invitation? Frankly, it doesn’t look good, and it tends to bolster right-wing tropes about “snowflakes” and “PC campus culture.”
Finally, there’s the issue of safety. Some people (immigrants, for example) might feel targeted by CIS, and perhaps this is a reason to avoid engagement with the organization. In fact, CIS does target immigrants in its policy proposals (the “pro-immigrant” part of its mission statement notwithstanding), and so there is some justification for this concern. But in my opinion, individuals who feel targeted by CIS need to understand the organization’s policy positions so that they can help refute those positions. Such individuals also need to explain to CIS how its work hurts real life people. Another aspect of this is that many of CIS’s proposals would harm the weakest members of our society, and so we need to engage with the organization in order to stand up when defenseless people are bullied.
In the end, I don’t think we have anything to fear from engaging with CIS. We “pro-immigrant” advocates largely have logic, humanity, and American values on our side. The hard work lies in engaging with those who disagree with us, and hopefully moving our nation in a better direction.
This article is by Josh Rigney, the Legal Services Program Manager at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC). Josh has worked with survivors of torture seeking asylum since May 2012. He holds a Master’s in International Relations and a Juris Doctor from American University. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar. The opinions expressed in this article are his alone, and do not represent the opinions of TASSC.
Taking asylum policy advice from CIS is like taking urban planning advice from Godzilla.
On May 10, I attended a panel discussion organized by the Center for Immigration Studies (“CIS”) and titled Asylum Fraud and National Security. Described on the CIS website as a discussion on the threat posed by “the vetting – or the lack thereof” of asylum applicants in the U.S., the panel included three speakers who, at least on paper, appeared to have impressive expertise on immigration issues. Two of the speakers, Andrew Arthur and Mark Metcalf, formally served as immigration judges in Pennsylvania and Florida, respectively. The final panelist, Todd Bensman, is a long-time journalist with degrees in journalism and homeland security studies.
CIS’s tagline is “Low-immigration, Pro-immigrant,” and it bills itself as “an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization.” However, CIS is reliably biased, and produces shoddy “research” prone to support any policy that will decrease all immigration to the United States, regardless of the heartless nature of the policy. For example, a recent Washington Post article quoted Executive Director Mark Krikorian speaking in favor of limiting immigration by breeding fear of U.S. immigration policies amongst potential immigrants. Krikorian stated that only if Trump follows through on the fear inspired by his pronouncements on immigration will CIS’s preferred immigration levels be realized.
As an immigration attorney who works with survivors of torture seeking asylum, turning the asylum process into a national security witch hunt would obviously impact those whom I serve. But that is not the only reason the panel’s viewpoints should matter to the broader asylum-seeker community and its supporters. As a recent New York Times article stressed, CIS – designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – and other anti-immigrant hard-liners now have the ear of the White House and congressional policy makers on immigration.
The panelists stressed several points during the event. First, immigrants are a threat to the safety of the United States. Second, while refugees pose a danger, asylum seekers are an even greater threat to U.S. national security. Third, fraud is rampant among asylum seekers. Therefore, the panelists agreed that U.S. policymakers must make it harder for everyone to receive asylum, whether or not a particular individual has a legitimate claim.
Immigrants are Dangerous
To convince the small crowd at the event that all immigrants – asylum-seeking or otherwise – pose a threat to the safety of the United States, each panelist took turns describing his favorite scary immigrant story. Andrew Arthur spoke about Ramzi Yousef, one of the perpetrators of the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993. Bensman spoke of Pakistanis with potential terrorist ties crossing the southern border with the help of a smuggler named Rakhi Gauchan. He stressed that Gauchan believed one of the Pakistanis was a terrorist, and Bensman stated that this person later received asylum.
Of course, relying on scattered anecdotes to draw broad conclusions about all asylum seekers does not make for sound policy. For example, Bensman did not mention whether he actually knew the Pakistani was a terrorist. Indeed, according to his own master’s thesis, American investigators never determined whether Gauchan’s terrorism suspicions were accurate.
As with any policy issue, harping on the inevitable few bad apples does not support throwing all of them out. Overall statistical trends must be analyzed, particularly when the goal is to punish an entire group of people, and particularly one as large as asylum seekers. In the first three months of 2017 alone, 40,899 people filed asylum claims with the Asylum Office. The handful of cases the panelists cited in their comments cannot justify making the asylum process more difficult for all of these people.
What Do the Numbers Tell Us?
A study published by the Cato Institute, an organization founded by one of the Republican mega-donor Koch brothers, determined that the chance that you will be killed by a foreign-born terrorist who is in the U.S. because of a grant of asylum is 1 in 2.7 billion. Between 1975 and 2015, over 700,000 people were granted asylum in the United States. Of those, just 4 have been “convicted of planning or committing a terrorist attack on U.S. soil…”
So what statistics did the expert panel use to support their assertion that all asylum seekers are dangerous? In the only notable mention of actual numbers, Mark Metcalf provided data released by EOIR on the number of immigrants with pending court cases who failed to show up in court for their hearings. However, at no point did he provide any breakdown of the numbers for asylum seekers; nor did he explain how failing to show up for a court hearing is equivalent to committing asylum fraud or posing a threat to U.S. national security.
One of the panelists, in a nod to those in the crowd who felt the U.S. is too generous to immigrants, mentioned that the U.S. “accepts more refugees than the rest of the world combined.” For the record, the U.S., a country of more than 325 million people, resettled 66,500 out of the 107,100 total refugees resettled by all countries in 2015. Canada, a country with a population of approximately 36 million people, resettled 20,000 refugees. Furthermore, Turkey (2.5 million), Pakistan (1.6 million), and Lebanon (1.1 million) all host over a million refugees each. For asylum seekers, the United States received only slightly more applications (172,700) than Sweden (156,400), a country of only 10 million people. Meanwhile, Germany (population of 81 million) received 441,900 asylum applications.
The point is that while the U.S. does offer refuge to a significant number of people fleeing persecution every year, that does not justify the draconian policy recommendations supported by the panelists.
Asylum Seekers vs. Refugees
I can actually agree with some of the panel’s comments comparing the relative threat posed by refugees against the threat posed by asylum seekers. Arthur stressed that the primary difference between refugees and asylum seekers is that refugees are fully vetted prior to ever setting foot in the United States. In contrast, asylum seekers make it to U.S. territory, then seek protection while waiting for their asylum claim to be granted or rejected. Depending on the court or asylum office with jurisdiction over the applicant’s claim, that process can take many years (one survivor from my organization recently received asylum after a ten-year struggle). During this time, asylum seekers remain in the United States without undergoing security checks like those that refugees must pass before entering.
Of course, none of this really matters unless you accept the idea that immigrants are truly a threat – which takes us back to the previous point. Yes, in theory, asylum seekers have the potential to pose a greater security threat than refugees – but that threat is already extremely low to begin with. In actuality, objective evidence that asylum seekers as a group are a threat to U.S. national security is weak at best.
For example, the panelists claimed again and again that fraud is rampant in the asylum system – relying, again, on a handful of selected stories. As evidence of potential security threats, they correctly pointed out that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice do not conduct regular system-wide fraud risk assessments. But without such assessments, how did the panelists conclude that fraud is rampant?
“Pro-immigrant”
At times, at least one panelist expressed sympathy for the plight of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers with legitimate claims. For example, Arthur correctly stated that each fraudulent asylum application filed by someone without a claim will cause further delay in the process for another asylum seeker with a legitimate claim. He also paid lip service to the reality that the United States is a nation built by immigrants. Overall, however, the panelists expressed support for several policies that would have a disastrous impact on all asylum applicants seeking safety in the U.S.
Arthur promoted the use of detention for asylum seekers, stating that the longer a person is detained, the less likely that person is to obtain asylum fraudulently. He failed to mention the devastating psychological repercussions detention will have for the thousands of torture and trauma survivors—many of whom are already suffering from PTSD—who would inevitably be thrown into such facilities.
Arthur also declared that any person that transits through another country on the way to the United States lacks true fear, but instead seeks economic opportunity. In response, Mark Krikorian, in the role of moderator, asked if the U.S. should categorically deny asylum to anyone that transited through another country. Arthur suggested that could be achieved through legislation to change the eligibility requirements for asylum.
Bensman suggested that only when we can guarantee the identity of people through unimpeachable ID documents should we allow them to seek asylum. But in reality, the lack of such documentation often stems from the chaos that forced asylum seekers to seek safety in the first place. In other words, his suggestion would bar those in greatest need of protection from accessing the asylum system at all.
Finally, all the panelists suggested that DHS and DOJ commit significant resources to assess the fraud risk in the asylum system.
Ignoring the Elephant in the Room
Notably absent from these policy recommendations was the hiring of additional Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers. Assuming, for the moment, that asylum seekers waiting in the asylum backlog are a threat to U.S. national security, I can’t help but wonder why the panelists never suggested the only solution that would make it easier for immigration officials to spot fraudulent asylum claims.
Mark Metcalf tacitly recognized this concept when he highlighted that good cross-examination, either by a prosecutor or an Immigration Judge, can expose fake asylum claims. The same principle holds for intelligent questioning by Asylum Officers in asylum interviews. With the current backlog of nearly 600,000 cases at the Immigration Courts, and another 250,000 claims before the Asylum Offices, each official responsible for testing the credibility of these claims is heavily overburdened. Relieving that burden by hiring more Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers will help these officials spot the fraudulent asylum claims that do cross their paths.
This solution can lessen the actual problem of immense backlogs and long waits for people seeking asylum. As an added bonus, it would simultaneously address the speculative and over-exaggerated threats that the panelists identified, without denying a path to safety for tens of thousands of people fleeing persecution.
Nayla Rush, a Senior Researcher at the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, has apparently been spying on the USCIS Asylum Division – and lying about what she has overheard.
I couldn’t find a photo of Nayla Rush infiltrating the asylum meeting, but I assume it would look something like this.
First, a bit of background: As you may know, the Center for Immigration Studies or CIS (not to be confused with USCIS – the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) is a group that wants to restrict immigration to the United States. Their writers are usually intellectually honest, though not always. I often disagree with their policy positions, and I have written about them a few times (here, here, and here). They also occasionally write about me.
Last week, I visited the CIS website and discovered Nayla Rush’s post about attending the USCIS Asylum Division Quarterly Stakeholder Meeting on December 11, 2015. The meeting was for “Stakeholders” in the asylum system: Advocacy groups, lawyers, even–I suppose–people who want to restrict the asylum process. But the meeting is specifically not for the media. The invitation reads, “Note to media: This engagement is not for press purposes. Please contact USCIS Press Office… for any media inquiries.”
It just so happens that I also attended the meeting in question, which was led by the Asylum Division Director, John Lafferty. About 50 people were present, including USCIS staff, private lawyers (like me), and representatives of various organizations involved with asylum law.
During the first part of the meeting, each person introduced himself and stated the name of his organization. If Ms. Rush introduced herself, I do not remember. But certainly she did not reveal that she was representing CIS – everyone there knows the anti-immigration group and her presence at the meeting would have raised some eyebrows.
Ms. Rush also did not reveal that she was attending in her capacity as a journalist. Perhaps she hoped to discover some dirt or some secret conspiracy between USCIS and asylum advocates. Maybe she covertly recorded the meeting, Planned Parenthood-style, with the hope of exposing something nefarious. Apparently, she did not find anything too damning, but fear not–in the absence of evidence, you can always make stuff up.
From the meeting, Ms. Rush claims to have learned that “Officers interview asylum seekers by phone in 60 percent of the cases (except for families who are already in detention centers).” In her piece, “Most Asylum Applicants Are Interviewed by Telephone. Feel Safer?“, Ms. Rush notes that it’s hard enough to assess an applicant’s credibility, but if the officers cannot even look the applicant in the eye, fraudulent asylum seekers–including potentially dangerous people–can scam their way through the system. “Call me skeptical,” she writes, “but I don’t see how this subjective assessment [of asylum seeker credibility] can be obtained through a telephone conversation.”
So the premise of Ms. Rush’s article is that 60% of asylum seekers are interviewed by phone. If this were true, it would be cause for concern. However, the actual number of asylum seekers interviewed by phone is more like 0%. That’s zero. Zilch. Nada. None. In fact, every asylum applicant interviews in-person, face-to-face, with an Asylum Officer. So what is Ms. Rush talking about?
My best guess is that she has confused (or deliberately conflated) asylum interviews and credible fear interviews (“CFI”). The purpose of an asylum interview is to determine whether an applicant may be granted asylum, and thus the legal ability to remain permanently in the U.S. The purpose of a CFI is to determine whether an applicant presents a prima facia case for asylum. If the applicant meets this minimal standard, she will then be sent to an Immigration Judge (or in the case of a minor, an Asylum Officer) to determine whether asylum should be granted. If the applicant fails the credible fear interview, she will be deported. Many credible fear applicants are interviewed by phone, but since this is only an initial evaluation of the case, and since the only purpose is to assess whether the person has articulated a fear of return to her country, credibility is not really a consideration. If the person “passes” the CFI and then presents her asylum case, she will have an in-person interview (or a trial) where credibility is carefully considered.
From all this, it seems that Ms. Rush is either so unfamiliar with the asylum process that she confused two basic concepts (asylum and CFI), or she understands the asylum process and she is a big liar. My guess is that it’s the latter. Why? Because the article is not the only instance of Ms. Rush’s dishonesty when it comes to refugees.
Take, for example, Ms. Rush’s recent report on the UN’s Role in U.S. Refugee Resettlement, where she claims that the “United States is entrusting the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with the entire selection and pre-screening process of Syrian refugees eligible for resettlement in the United States” (the emphasis is mine). The implication is that the UN determines who comes to the U.S. as a refugee. This is completely false. The UN refers refugees to the U.S. government, which then independently screens them and performs background checks (I’ve written about this process here). Ms. Rush’s fear-mongering and dishonesty about Syrian refugees suggests that her motivation is to score political points, regardless of the facts.
Frankly, I am not particularly bothered by Ms. Rush attending the Asylum Division meeting under false pretenses and then writing about it. I happen to believe (like her, I think) that the system should be more transparent. What bothers me is that she would attend the meeting and then deliberately distort what she heard.
As I have written before, there are legitimate arguments for limiting the number of refugees and asylum seekers we admit into the United States. We as a country should be discussing these issues, and organizations like CIS have an important role to play in that conversation. But when CIS distorts the facts in order to advance its argument, it impoverishes the debate and damages its own credibility. Hopefully, in the future, CIS and Ms. Rush will be more responsible and more honest as we continue to discuss this important topic.
A recent article by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies posits that even if the unaccompanied minors arriving at our Southern border are refugees, they should be sent back.
Mr. Krikorian’s view of Mexico.
I find that CIS in general and Mr. Krikorian in particular are usually fairly reasonable in their arguments (though there are exceptions; and more exceptions). However, Mr. Krikorian’s recent article is long on insults and short on insights.
First, the insults (they’re more fun to deal with, no?). He refers to the “anti-borders Left,” which I suppose means that to him, anyone who advocates for immigrants opposes all borders. This is kind of like saying that anyone who advocates for a speed limit opposes driving. He also refuses to acknowledge that children arriving at the border are unaccompanied (he refers to them as “unaccompanied” – damning them with quotation marks). What he means by “unaccompanied” is that the children are brought here by smugglers who (and this is a real quote from CIS – check the link if you don’t believe me) “watch over the children until they are taken into custody by U.S. authorities as part of a process that turns the children over to relatives in the United States.” I guess technically, the children are accompanied, though having a smuggler “watch over” my kids is about as desirable as having them spend a night at Neverland Ranch. Finally, here’s a good one:
Asylum is for people willing to go anywhere to get out of where they are; just as a drowning man doesn’t pick and choose among life preservers he sees in the water, a genuine asylum-seeker doesn’t pick and choose among countries.
Au contraire, mon Krikorian: Drowning men who hope to survive are actually quite picky about their life preservers. Think about Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie with the boat. Had he been a bit more choosy, maybe he and Kate Winslet would have floated off together into the happily ever after. In the same way, asylum seekers must be very choosy about where they plan to spend the rest of their lives. Just ask all those poor Eritrean refugees in Sudan, who are subject to exploitation, attacks, and expulsions. Probably they are wishing that they had found a better life preserver.
A Central American refugee’s view of Mexico.
OK, enough of that. Now to Mr. Krikorian’s “insights” (sorry for the quotes, I was feeling snarky).
Mr. Krikorian’s main point is that even if the children from Central America are refugees, a point that he does not concede, they can be turned away under international law. Why? Because the 1951 Refugee Convention provides:
The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.
According to Mr. Krikorian, the underlined language means that an alien who flees persecution and passes through one country should not be allowed to apply for asylum in another country because the alien is not “coming directly” from the territory of feared harm. In other words, Central Americans who pass through Mexico cannot seek asylum in the U.S. because they are obliged to seek asylum in Mexico.
There is one teeny tiny problem with Mr. Krikorian’s idea. As he himself notes, United States law “unfortunately” only allows asylum seekers to be turned away if they come from a “safe third country.” U.S. law recognizes only one “safe third country,” Canada. He thus suggest that the statutory fix to the border surge is to “bar outright any asylum claim from someone who passed through a third country where he should have made that claim first.”
While I think this is an idea worth discussing, I don’t see it as the simple solution that Mr. Krikorian does. For one thing, while Mr. Krikorian wants to convince us that Mexico is a “safe” country, there is a lot of evidence that it is not safe. So if such a law were implemented, I would expect the battle would shift from the applicant’s fear of return to her country to why she would not be safe in Mexico (much as the battle in many asylum cases is about the one-year filing deadline, not the fear of return). All this would make Central American cases more–not less–difficult (and time consuming) to adjudicate.
Also, there is the more philosophical question about how we, as a country, want to treat people coming to us for help. While we cannot solve all the worlds problems, we also cannot ignore those problems. Especially when they are in our backyard (remember the Monroe Doctrine). And especially when our policies contributed to those problems (remember the Monroe Doctrine).
Mr. Krikorian and I do, I think, agree on one thing: The influx of asylum seekers at our border needs to be addressed. We need to have a rational policy debate about how to treat such people. In my opinion, that debate should protect the integrity of our asylum system (it should not be used as a way to get around normal immigration procedures) and it should also respect the people coming to us for help and protect bona fide refugees. Even though I generally disagree with them, I believe that groups like CIS–groups that advocate for more restrictive immigration policies–have an important role to play in the debate. That role would be more constructive if they focused more on policy and less on polemics.
The Center for Immigration Studies (“CIS”) is a restrictionist immigration group with which I rarely agree (though they did recently call me a babe, which I certainly appreciate). In a new report, Asylum in the United States: How a finely tuned system of checks and balances has been effectively dismantled, CIS Fellow Dan Cadman argues that it has become easier to obtain asylum in the U.S., and as a result, more aliens–including dangerous aliens and aliens with false asylum claims–are coming to the United States and using the asylum system to gain entry into our country.
If I were a president, CIS thinks I would be Babe-raham Lincoln.
The CIS report makes a number of findings and recommendations, and if you are interested in this subject, it’s worth a read (and if you are not interested in this subject, why the hell are you reading my blog?). Today, I want to talk about the report’s main recommendations. We’ll go through them one by one:
(1) Congress must take steps to legislatively curb the propensity of courts to grant protections to aliens who are members of, have participated in, or have materially supported heinous criminal organizations or insurgencies… if those organizations systematically victimize others. This can be done by amending current language that limits the persecutor bar only to those who persecute under the five designated grounds, or by adding supplementary language to establish victimization of others with the purpose of furthering unlawful objectives as a bar to asylum or refuge.
Who can argue with blocking persecutors and criminals from entering the United States? (Anyway, we have enough of our own already–I’m talking to you Dick Cheney). And CIS is correct that the persecutor bar only blocks people who persecuted others based on one of the five protected grounds (race, religion, nationality, particular social group or political opinion). This is almost as bizarre as granting asylum only to people who face persecution based on one of the five protected grounds.
Overall, I don’t really have a problem with this recommendation, except for the fact that it is totally unnecessary. The persecutor bar is not the only bar to asylum. Anyone who committed (or who the U.S. has reason to believe committed) a serious non-political crime is barred. Ditto for anyone where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person is a danger to the security of the United States. These are mandatory bars for asylum and withholding of removal. So while there is nothing wrong with CIS’s proposal, it’s hard to imagine how it would actually change anything–all the people it seeks to block are already barred under other provisions of the statute.
(2) Congress must roll back the recently-issued “Notice of Determination” promulgated by the administration with relation to terrorism and material support waivers.
I’ve already discussed this issue pretty extensively here. In short, the only people who benefit from this change are those who provided support to terrorists where that support was coerced or unknowing. In other words, people who are innocent, and who, in many cases, are actually victims of those terrorists.
(3) DHS (and, failing its action, Congress) must immediately institute a mandatory program of routine audits of a percentage of both credible fear findings, and formal asylum grants — perhaps an across-the-board 10 percent of all cases — as a method of detecting fraud and ensuring appropriate findings of credibility, and approval of asylum cases.
This is an intriguing idea about how to stop fraud, but I don’t think it would be particularly effective. I’ve always felt that the most cost-effective way to fight fraud is to go after the attorneys and notarios who commit fraud. Randomly auditing cases probably won’t deter fraudulent applicants–they already face scrutiny from decision-makers, so what’s one more level of review going to do?
Perhaps one way to refine CIS’s idea would be to select certain applicants for a more extensive interview or court process (rather than a separate audit). This might involve consular investigations or contacting overseas witnesses, more extensive questioning of the applicant, verifying the applicant’s employment and education, etc. Applicants could be selected randomly or–better yet–selected based on an initial evaluation of the likelihood of fraud. While I still think it makes more sense to attack the source of the problem (the attorneys and notarios who facilitate fraud), subjecting suspicious (or random) cases to increased scrutiny might deter some people from making false claims.
(4) The prosecution of asylum (or refugee) fraud and misrepresentations [should be made] a priority.
Again, I think it would be more cost-effective to prosecute the lawyers and notarios who create fraudulent cases, but I have no problem with prosecuting asylum applicants who commit fraud. The problem is, such cases are difficult to prosecute given the high burden of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) and the difficulty of obtaining evidence against the alien who faked his case. Such evidence is especially difficult (and expensive) to obtain when it comes from overseas.
(5) Congress should amend the INA to provide that refugees and asylees will only be entitled to apply for conditional residence after a year in status, and not eligible to apply for adjustment to full lawful permanent resident status until after three years…. Although the three years of conditional residence does not eliminate fraud, it acts as a levee against an overwhelming volume of fraud while at the same time permitting government officials additional opportunities to further examine the bona fides of cases before immediately granting resident alien status.
I guess I really don’t see the point of this suggestion. As things now stand, an alien who gets asylum can apply for a green card after one year. At that time, USCIS often re-considers the alien’s asylum case. For example, many Ethiopians who received asylum based on membership in a certain political opposition party have had their green cards held up (sometimes for years) due to the party affiliation (and the party’s possible relationship to an armed guerrilla group). Sometimes their asylum cases are reopened. Once an asylee gets her residency, she can apply for citizenship after four more years. At that time, USCIS often examines the bona fides of the asylum application again. Indeed, even after an alien obtains citizenship, a fraudulent application can haunt him. I recently met an Afghan man whose citizenship was revoked due to fraud. He is currently in removal proceedings. The point is, USCIS has plenty of opportunities to re-examine an asylum claim. I don’t see how one more opportunity will make much difference.
(6) Each application for adjustment of status filed by an asylee or refugee should, prior to adjudication, include careful consideration of whether there are changed conditions that merit denial of adjustment and termination of asylee or refugee status.
This seems pretty similar to # 5, above. Perhaps it also refers to changed country conditions that now make it safe for the alien to return home. I suppose USCIS could use any of the opportunities discussed above (application for green card or citizenship) to re-evaluate country conditions. But country conditions rarely change too much, and so I doubt this would result in many asylees being sent home.
(7) Congress should amend the INA to provide that return to the ostensible country of persecution, however briefly, by a refugee or asylee at any time prior to adjustment to full lawful permanent residence shall be deemed prima facie evidence that the individual is not entitled to such status, and require him to be placed into removal proceedings.
This idea was much discussed after the Boston Marathon bombing. The alleged bombers were derivative asylees, and they visited the home country prior to the bombing. In fact, as the law now stands, asylees who return home can lose their status. Indeed, even after an asylee becomes a lawful permanent resident, she can lose her status if she returns home (I wrote about this here). Return to the home country does not automatically cause an alien to lose status, as there are sometimes legitimate reasons for going back, but anyone who returns as an asylee or an LPR risks being placed into removal proceedings. Because this law already exists, CIS’s suggestion here seems redundant.
So there you have it. For completeness sake, I note that I did not discuss the report’s recommendation to reject an asylum reform bill that is pending in the Senate. It seems that bill ain’t going anywhere, and so there is not much point in talking about it, especially since I’ve already rambled on long enough. Adieu.
It’s easy to find anti-immigration websites and blogs on the internet, but there really aren’t many websites devoted exclusively to opposing refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S. Of course, many of the anti-immigration websites periodically discuss these issues, but this is not the same as a restrictionist website focusing on asylum.
The only blog I’ve found that is devoted exclusively to these issues is Refugee Resettlement Watch, which (as the name implies) was founded to highlight problems in the U.S. refugee resettlement program. RRW advocates for fewer refugees and better oversight of the resettlement program. It also opposes bringing in “Muslim refugees, Somalis in particular, who have no intention of becoming Americans.” The blog authors add a note for those who might think the website racist:
Some of you reading this have for way too long intimidated and silenced people you disagree with by calling them racists, xenophobes, hatemongers and on and on and on. It doesn’t work here, in fact, when you start with that sort of attack and don’t address the issues we raise, it validates our work.
The bloggers for RRW are very active, and post several articles each day. They also attract a fair bit of attention–according to their website statistics, the site has received almost 1.2 million hits.
Although I obviously disagree with the main goal of RRW, I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with advocating for the reduction or elimination of our refugee and/or asylum programs. Indeed, I can think of a number of legitimate arguments supporting such a move: Our money would be more effectively spent helping refugees overseas; these programs are too costly given our current economic woes; refugees integrate too slowly–or not at all–into our communities; we should only help refugees who are “culturally compatible” with our society. I won’t address these arguments here. Instead, I want to talk about RRW (in other words, it’s time for the unsolicited advice).
"Why are people always dis-ing Ishtar?"
First, RRW would be more effective if it was less partisan. The blog is not even close to neutral in its approach; it reports almost exclusively negative news about refugees. If a refugee jaywalks in Cincinnati, RRW will cover it. But if a refugee saves 10 children from a burning school bus, you won’t hear about it on RRW. Perhaps the point is to destroy the myth of refugees as innocent victims and replace it with a more sinister image. While this type of advocacy might do well with the already converted, it is unlikely to change many people’s minds. So my advice to RRW is, try to be a bit more subtle. If you want to convince me that Dustin Hoffman is a crummy actor, you can’t only talk to me about Ishtar. You have to address The Graduate and (G-d forbid) Meet the Fockers. My point being, unless RRW acknowledges in a meaningful way the positive aspects of the refugee and asylum programs, it will not have much legitimacy to address the negative aspects.
Second, while I am willing to accept RRW’s claim that it is not racist or xenophobic, it certainly provides a safe space for racists, xenophobes, and hatemongers. A quick purview of the comments (and RRW’s responses) demonstrates this pretty clearly. Even the Center for Immigration Studies–a well known restrictionist group that has itself been (unjustly in my opinion) called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center–keeps a safe distance from RRW. So my advice is, don’t allow hateful and racist comments to go unchallenged. When you actually demonstrate that you oppose racism and xenophobia, instead of just saying it on your “about us” page, people will take you more seriously.
Finally, many of the articles on RRW take a contemptuous tone towards refugees and advocates for refugees. While these repeated–and often nasty–comments might be viscerally appealing to people who oppose (or hate) refugees, they are a big turn off to the unconverted. My advice: Have a sense of humor and give people the benefit of the doubt, at least once in a while. Everyone who advocates for refugees is not a self-serving, crypto-jihadist, and many refugees are simply ordinary people fleeing terrible circumstances. A more respectful tone towards such people might actually win you some converts.
Of course, I don’t expect RRW to listen to my advice (does anyone listen to advice these days anyway?). Perhaps they are satisfied speaking to a like-minded audience and avoiding honest debate with their political opponents. To engage in a real discussion with people who have different views requires listening, humility, patience, and courage. I know from personal experience that it is not always easy to engage in such discussions. But that is how we learn and grow, and it is how we get closer to the truth.
For those who seek to limit immigration to the U.S., one area of concern is so-called “chain immigration,” where one immigrant brings multiple family members to the United States.
This applies to asylees and refugees as follows: Such people can immediately bring their spouses and under-21, unmarried children to the United States (the term “immediately” here means that there is no backlog – processing the family member takes anywhere from six months to several years). Asylees and refugees are eligible for their green card after one year, and then their citizenship four years later. Once they have their green card, they can file for their over-21 children (including the child’s spouse and under-21 children), and once they become citizens, they can file for their parents, siblings (including the sibling’s spouse and under-21 children), and married children (including the spouse and under-21 children). In short, after the asylee or refugee becomes a U.S. citizen, she is eligible to bring multiple family members to the United States–“chain migration.”
In a recent blog post on the Center for Immigration Studies website, David North argues that we could limit chain immigration by prohibiting asylees and refugees from filing for family members other than spouses and under-21 children. Before responding to Mr. North’s proposal, I want to mention a few points. First, I disagree with the presumption behind the proposal–the idea that immigration has a negative effect on our society and should be more limited than it already is. Of course, too many immigrants could not be absorbed and integrated, but I am not convinced we have reached that level. Second (and maybe this is a contradictory point), I believe we should eliminate the “siblings” category of immigrants. There are large backlogs for many categories of immigrant. I think we would be better off eliminating the siblings category and using those slots for children and spouses of lawful permanent residents. It never made sense to me that we allow the principal immigrant to come here with a green card, but we make his family members wait for years to join him. This greatly delays the family members’ integration into our society, keeps family members unnecessarily separated, and causes the principal to send his earnings out of the U.S. to support his family. We’d be better off bringing the family members here sooner, and one way to do that is to use the visa numbers that are currently given to siblings.
Reunited and it feels so good...
All that said, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. North’s proposal for several reasons. For one thing, allowing asylees and refugees to bring their family members here does not greatly increase the overall number of people immigrating to our country. For most categories of family immigrants, there are numerical limits on the number of people who can immigrate to the U.S. each year. Thus, at worst, the relatives of the asylees and refugees will displace the relatives of other people who are waiting to immigrate. There will be very little increase in the overall numbers.
Second, I disagree with the idea of making asylees and refugees “different” from others who come to the U.S. It seems to me, if we are bringing such people to the U.S., we ought to treat them the same as every other immigrant once they become lawful permanent residents or U.S. citizens. It is better to integrate these people into our community, rather than erect barriers that make them feel excluded.
Finally, many asylees and refugees will never return to their home countries. For some, the only hope of seeing their family members is that they can file petitions for them to come to the U.S. Given the very long waiting times for an immigrant visa, and depending on which relatives are petitioned, such people can expect to wait anywhere from five to 20 years (or more) to see their family members. Thus, while many asylees and refugees have only a slim hope of seeing their family members again, I suppose this is better than no hope at all.
In the end, Mr. North’s proposal is quite modest. I just believe that the “benefits” (i.e., a small reduction in the number of people coming to the U.S.) are not worth the costs.
In this series (I suppose two posts counts as a series), I’ve been writing responses to some restrictionist proposals to reform the asylum system. My first piece was a response to Professor Jan C. Ting, who suggested we move asylum adjudication from DHS and EOIR to the U.S. Department of State. Today, I will examine Mark Krikorian’s suggestion in the New York Times that we expand the concept of a “safe third country.”
Mr. Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He writes that under the safe third country principle, which is “widely used elsewhere,” a foreigner “should not even be allowed to apply for asylum if he has passed through another country where he could have applied first.” “Because claims are so hard to prove, asylum will always be one of the most fraud-ridden parts of the immigration system.” By cutting out all who pass through “safe” third countries, such as Mexico, which is supposedly implementing a new law to protect asylum seekers, we would reduce the number of asylum seekers eligible to apply in the U.S. Mr. Krikorian believes that by “narrowing the focus of the system, we can more easily cope with the lies and fraud that are an inevitable part of asylum adjudication.”
Mexico doesn't seem like such a safe third country to me.
The idea that we should not allow people to pass through other safe countries before seeking asylum in the United States seems reasonable. However, there are several reasons why I don’t support Mr. Krikorian’s proposal (aside from the fact that it probably wouldn’t be in compliance with our current treaty obligations):
The first issue is how to determine whether a given third country is “safe.” For example, if an Eritrean escapes from her country and enters Sudan, and then flies directly to the U.S., is she barred from asylum here because Sudan is “safe?” Most people would agree that Sudan is not safe, and specifically, it is not safe for Eritrean refugees, who are sometimes kidnapped and returned to their country (usually to complete their compulsory national service). What about a person who passes through several different countries and then comes to the United States? How do we decide if a given country is safe for that person? To give another example, it is perfectly safe for me to go to Kenya for a vacation. However, it is probably not safe for an Ethiopian refugee to live in Kenya. So under Mr. Krikorian’s system, an asylum seeker would need to prove that every country she passed through was unsafe. To present that proof would require a certain amount of resources–and probably a decent lawyer. Only those who could afford to make their case would qualify for asylum. This seems like an arbitrarily way to determine who qualifies for protection in our country.
A related problem is that adjudicators would have to make an independent determination about the safety of each country that the asylum seeker traveled through. Such a burden on asylum adjudicators would complicate the cases, cause additional delay, and probably result in less fair decisions.
Another issue is that, as a world leader, other countries follow what we do. If we reduce the humanitarian benefits we provide to asylum seekers, other countries will likely follow suit. This would generally weaken the international system for protecting persecuted people.
Finally, behind Mr. Krikorian’s suggestion is the supposition that asylum seekers coming to the U.S. is a bad thing. I think this is dead wrong. Our country greatly benefits from asylum seekers. This has been historically true, and continues to be true today. My clients include doctors, journalists, people who are working with U.S. forces in the war on terror, engineers, and scientists. I don’t always know whether they are telling me the truth about their asylum claims, but I have no doubt about the positive contributions they make to our country. While I certainly do not support allowing fraudulent asylum seekers to take advantage of our generosity, I do not accept the premise that asylum seekers are a burden on our country.
So, in the end, I oppose Mr. Krikorian’s “safe third country” idea. As I mentioned in my first post in this series, the problem of asylum fraud is simply not severe enough to warrant dramatic restrictions on relief. At least in my estimation, any reduction in fraud from tightening the system is not worth the inevitable harm to legitimate asylum seekers.
David North recently posted a blog entry, the Uses and Abuses of the Asylum System, on the Center for Immigration Studies website. Normally, I disagree (sometimes vehemently) with postings on the CIS website. But this time, I’m pretty much in agreement with Mr. North.
In his posting, Mr. North describes the refugee system and the asylum system. Apparently, he previously prepared a comparison between refugees and asylees, examining the use of public benefits by each group (he references his study, but I did not notice a link to it). He found that asylees generally use less pubic benefits than refugees. He posits that asylum seekers tend to be wealthier and better educated than refugees–asylum seekers make (and pay for) their own way to the United States; refugees are selected overseas from people in camps or otherwise outside their countries.
His assessment certainly comports with my experience. My clients these days are asylum seekers; many of them are educated people who are reasonably well off. In the early 1990’s, I worked in refugee resettlement. My clients then were a mixed bag–Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union tended to be well educated, but poor. Amerasians and other refugees from Indochina were generally less well educated, and many were indigent.
Mr. North also notes that asylum seekers from some countries have filed meritless cases in an effort to delay their removal from the United States. I agree that this is a problem, though it is not really anything new. Indeed, the asylum system was reformed in 1996 to reduce the incentive to file meritless claims. Before 1996, asylum seekers received a work permit shortly after they filed for asylum. Now, they must wait 150 days before they can apply for a work permit. Of course, some people still file meritless claims in order to delay their removal. Unfortunately, Mr. North does not suggest what could be done about this. If we offer asylum to people with a genuine fear of persecution, it is difficult to prevent others from taking advantage of our generosity.
I do have one minor quibble with Mr. North’s posting. He notes that during FY 2008-2010, asylum seekers from Iraq were the group most likely to receive political asylum in Immigration Court (only 13% of Iraqi cases were denied). He writes:
The sad irony is that the U.S. government, after spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives to make life better in Iraq, has done so little good there, in the eyes of its own Immigration Judges, that when it comes to arguing that one is persecuted in one’s own country, those from Iraq are the ones most likely to win.
I don’t know if this is exactly correct. By the time a case reaches the decision stage in court, it is usually at least one year old, and often two or three years old. This means that any past persecution occurred probably two to five years earlier. During that time, conditions were much worse in Iraq. Mr. North may be correct–maybe IJs think we have not done much good in Iraq–but it is just as likely that the cases before them originated at a time when conditions in Iraq were less secure. My guess is, we will see the grant rate for Iraqi cases dropping over the next few years (unless of course the country falls apart again).
In any case, it is nice to agree with the Center for Immigration Studies for a change.
The Center for Immigration Studies never seems to let the facts get in the way of attacking immigrants and those who advocate for them. Most recently, Jessica Vaughan, CIS Director of Policy Studies, criticized Immigration Daily for holding a training on gang-based asylum claims. Instead of discussing the actual subject of the training, which is not particularly controversial, Ms. Vaughan simply made up her own version of the event in order to attack Immigration Daily. Of the training, she writes:
Learn how to establish that your gangster clients are “members of a particular social group,” that they deserve humanitarian protection due to their “political opinions” or “religion” (such as La Familia, the murderous Mexican cult-like cartel), and what the UN guidelines are on these oppressed individuals. This e-learning session was preceded by one on how to help your client get a waiver if they are denied a green card or refugee status because of their links to terrorist groups. No, this wasn’t in The Onion, it was in Immigration Daily, the leading e-newsletter of the immigration bar.
Ms. Vaughan did not find this description on the Immigration Daily website. Rather, she made it up. Gang-based asylum does not involve helping gang members enter the U.S. Rather, it is about helping people who have been threatened by gangs. But, Ms. Vaughan’s goal apparently is not to engage in intelligent debate or education; it is simply to denigrate and discredit those who advocate for people fleeing persecution.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says of CIS: “it has always been part of a broad-based and well-planned effort to attack immigration in all forms.” By making up phony arguments to influence the uninformed, Ms. Vaughan seems to be making their point for them. If CIS wants to be taken seriously, maybe it should demonstrate a little integrity. It can start by telling the truth.
