DHS

# Asylum Seekers

The Unjust Justification for Revoking Asylum Seekers’ Visas

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) plans to revoke up to 200,000 visitor visas for people who came to the United States and then applied for asylum. The move is largely symbolic, since the whole point of a visa is to allow someone to enter the country. Once they are here, the visa is no longer needed.

Revoking all these visas will be quite a production; so why would DOS go to the trouble if it has no real-world effect? Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau justified the revocation by claiming that people are “fed up with bogus asylum claims” and that asylum “isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration laws.” He cites one recent example–of Colombian national Humberto ‘Beto’ Coral–which supposedly “highlights such abuse.” Mr. Landau’s accusations against Mr. Coral are revealing; not for what they say about Mr. Coral, but instead, because they illustrate the Trump Administration’s ignorance of our asylum system, and its cavalier attitude towards the rule of law.

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By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Office# Immigration Court

The Asylum Office Is Not Working – It’s Time to Try Something New

There’s a scene in the iconic 1994 movie Clerks where Dante Hicks says to his friend and fellow slacker Randall Graves: “You hate people!” Randall responds, “Yes, but I love social gatherings–isn’t it ironic?” This is basically the opposite of my feelings towards the Asylum Office. The people are (mostly) great, but the organization is a disaster. Interviews are routinely delayed for years on end, decisions are delayed for months or years after that. The Asylum Offices rarely give sufficient notice before the interview, so there is little time to prepare, and the interviews themselves are often inefficient and interminably long.

In a recent post, I discussed Faiza W. Sayed’s bold ideas for reforming the Asylum Office and reducing the backlog (which currently stands at well over 1.3 million cases). But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the Asylum Office cannot be saved. It should be eliminated.

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By Jason Dzubow
# Immigration Court

Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Court

The Department of Homeland Security (the prosecutor in Immigration Court) has been implementing new rules related to its “enforcement priorities.” These rules apply to people who have cases pending in Immigration Court, meaning that the U.S. government is trying to deport them. Not surprisingly, the government wants to deport some people more than others. Under the new rules, cases that are not a priority for removal may be dismissed as a matter of prosecutorial discretion or PD. When that happens, the government has stopped the removal/deportation process and the noncitizen is able to remain in the United States.

Here, we’ll talk about who might qualify for PD, the different types of PD, and how to request PD from DHS.

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By Jason Dzubow
# Immigration Court

The Return of Prosecutorial Discretion

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.”

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By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Seekers# Get Involved# Legislation

Lobbying Congress to Reduce the Asylum Backlog

President Joe Biden sent the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 to Congress on January 20, his first day in office. This bill provides a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented individuals, prioritizes family reunification, addresses the root causes of migration from Central America, modernizes border security, and aims to reduce the Immigration Court backlog.

But even if the U.S. Citizenship Act becomes law (which seems increasingly unlikely), it does not address the backlog of over 373,000 affirmative asylum cases–these are mostly individuals who entered the United States legally with visas, and who then applied for asylum. They include democracy and human rights advocates, journalists, religious minorities, and members of the LGBT community, among others. Many in the backlog are torture survivors and others who have suffered severe persecution. Since one case sometimes contains several family members, the total number of people waiting in the affirmative asylum backlog is something like 600,000 individuals. Many of those in the backlog have already been waiting four, five or even six years for an interview. These individuals represent a “Hidden Asylum Crisis” because their suffering is invisible to the general public and has thus far been ignored by lawmakers.

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By Jason Dzubow
# Immigration

Ten Immigration Predictions for 2020

As you may have noticed, it’s 2020. I don’t have high hopes that this year will be any better than the last, at least in terms of immigration and asylum, but I do have some predictions for what to expect in the coming annum. While I am no Joan Quigley, I do expect that at … Read more

By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Seekers# Immigration# National Security

Exposing the Grandma Menace

On April 26, the Department of Homeland Security launched its new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office. According to DHS, VOICE will “assist victims of crimes committed by criminal aliens.” DHS Secretary John Kelly said in a statement, “All crime is terrible, but these victims are unique—and too often ignored. They are casualties of crimes that … Read more

By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Seekers# Immigration# National Security

DHS Is Your Friend on Facebook, Whether You “Like” It or Not

Following the December 2, 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, where the husband-and-wife perpetrators had purportedly become radicalized via the internet, Congress requested that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) take steps to better investigate the social media accounts of immigrant applicants (the husband was an American-born U.S. citizen of Pakistani decent; his wife … Read more

By Jason Dzubow