Migrant caravan may lead to asylum overhaul
Advocates say Congress should streamline system
The thousands of migrants camped along the southern border as part of the controversial caravan may never gain asylum in the USA, but the pressure they placed on the nation’s immigration system may force Congress to revamp an outdated system used to admit people seeking safe haven in America.
President Donald Trump has treated the caravan as a purely law enforcement situation, deploying more than
2,000 National Guardsmen, nearly
6,000 active-duty military troops and hundreds of additional Border Patrol agents to line the border with concertina wire and prevent caravan members from illegally entering the country. He tried to cut off asylum for some members of the caravan, but that move was quickly shot down by federal courts.
That means it may be up to Congress to find a long-term solution to prevent future waves of caravans and the bigger tide of foreign-born individuals searching for refuge in America.
Immigration experts on both sides of the aisle said Congress must deter-
mine who qualifies for asylum and set up a fair and speedy process to judge their cases.
Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service who served in Republican and Democratic administrations, said most of the world’s refugee and asylum programs were designed in the years after World War II, set up to respond to the dangers posed by communist regimes and state-sponsored ethnic cleansing. The United States is no exception, relying on the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 to dictate who is considered a refugee or asylee.
“That ended once the Berlin Wall came down in 1989,” said Meissner, director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Ever since, she said, governments across the globe have struggled to adapt to a new definition of refuge, which helps explain why countries from the United States to Germany to Greece have struggled in the face of historic surges of refugees across the globe.
In the USA, asylum and refugee status are similar in that they allow foreigners to enter the country if they have a well-founded fear of being persecuted in their home country because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The only difference is that refugees are interviewed and vetted outside the USA, while asylum seekers make their request and go through the interview process after arriving in the USA.
Who should get asylum?
One of the areas Congress can change is the grounds under which people can qualify for asylum.
Some of the qualifications are clearcut, including religious persecution and attacks against the LGBTQ community.
“Whatever side of the aisle you’re on, you have to accept that … there are individuals throughout the world being persecuted, tortured and killed for their beliefs and just for who they are,” said Gregory Asciolla, a lawyer with the Labaton Sucharow law firm who repre- sented a gay man who won asylum in October because of the attacks he suffered in his native Uganda.
The situation becomes far more cloudy for others requesting asylum, especially those migrants coming from Central America.
The primary reasons migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have cited are that they’re victims of domestic abuse or gang violence. Immigration judges mostly reject such claims, which explains why Central American migrants are denied more than 70 percent of the time, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a project with Syracuse University that monitors immigration data through public records requests.
When he was attorney general, Jeff Sessions called those denial rates proof that most Central American asylum claims are fraudulent attempts to game the system. He announced rules in June limiting the ability of victims of domestic abuse and gang violence to win asylum, saying the United States can’t accept everyone who has been the victim of any crime.
Ava Benach, an immigration attorney from Washington, said those denial rates simply prove that asylum rules haven’t adjusted to modern realities. She said victims of domestic abuse and gang violence should absolutely qualify for asylum because Central American governments cannot help them, either because they are unable or unwilling to confront the husbands and gangs that carry out those crimes.
The denial rates “give rise to this belief that what they’re fleeing isn’t persecution, isn’t worthy of our protection,” Benach said. “But yes, this is persecution of people. This is danger and violence to people not because of anything they’ve done wrong.”
How should the system change?
Immigration experts said the system can be adjusted at all stages, from the moment foreigners apply for asylum to the time an immigration judge decides their case.
Some said Central Americans should make their asylum claims before they reach U.S. soil, a process that would resemble the refugee application process.
The Obama administration started a program to allow minors from Central America to submit their applications from their home countries. The Trump administration pushes a plan to force all migrants to remain in Mexico while their asylum applications are decided.
Another approach is to tighten the initial screening process all asylum seekers go through, known as a “credible fear” test. If approved, they enter the USA to submit their formal asylum application and await a court hearing that will decide whether they win asylum. Republicans sponsored a bill in the House that would raise the bar to pass to clear that initial screening.
The back end of the asylum system also needs revisions. So many people have applied for asylum in the past decade that the system faces a historic backlog – more than 800,000 with pending applications and court hearings, according to the State Department.
Trump deployed thousands of military personnel to the border to stop illegal immigration but has not made a similar push to add asylum case officers or immigration judges. Congress could do that.
Meissner said Congress could rework the system so asylum officers could conduct the entire hearing for asylum seekers, which she said would speed up the process and eliminate the incentive of remaining in the country for years while the case is decided.
“That is the strongest signal you can send back,” she said.