Washington
Update
June 2003
Threats to Asylum
Protection in a Time of Heightened Security
By Chris Einolf, LIRS Consultant
and author of The Mercy Factory: Refugees and the American
Asylum System
Outside of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C., is a street named “Raoul Wallenberg
Plaza” in honor of the Swedish diplomat who helped thousands
of Jews escape the Holocaust by forging passports for them.
For decades U.S. immigration law has recognized that people
fleeing persecution must sometimes use false documents to escape
authoritarian regimes. Recently, the federal government has
instituted two enforcement policies that undermine this tradition
of protection.
Today those using false documents to escape persecution may
be greeted not with freedom, but with imprisonment. In an unprecedented
move, federal prosecutors in Florida have begun charging asylum
seekers with document fraud. Those who have been convicted could
still apply for asylum upon release from prison, but their chances
of success would be greatly impaired with a criminal record.
In April Attorney General John Ashcroft reaffirmed a second
Department of Justice enforcement policy that undermines protection.
In Matter of D—J— he ruled that asylum seekers arriving
by boat must be detained without parole until they either win
asylum or are deported. In this decision Ashcroft overruled
the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative
court that interprets immigration law. Citing “national
security interests,” he argued that detention is necessary
to deter Haitians from fleeing to the United States and that
without deterrence, many more would flee, diverting “valuable
Coast Guard and [Department of Defense] resources from counterterrorism
and homeland security responsibilities.”
In a hopeful action the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
reversed an Operation Liberty Shield policy requiring detention
without parole of asylum seekers from 33 nations and two territories.
LIRS and many other advocates had spoken out strongly against
the policy, which was announced in March, believing that security
concerns can be more justly addressed with case-by-case determinations.
We were pleased to learn that the DHS had ended the policy April
17.
These three policies are striking both because they overturn
decades of practice of refugee protection and because they were
made without congressional approval or the usual deliberative
regulation process.
A fourth item remains pending before federal authorities. In
February advocates learned that the attorney general was going
to issue new regulations aimed at preventing women who were
victims of domestic violence from receiving asylum protection.
This news led to a public outcry, and LIRS and other advocates
worked with Congress to encourage the attorney general not to
take this step. After 49 House members wrote to urge Ashcroft
not to issue the regulations, he backed down, leaving the matter
undecided. The authority to issue regulations is now shared
by the Department of Justice and the DHS, and it may be possible
to change the regulations so that certain victims of domestic
violence can still be granted asylum in the United States.
We are encouraged by the changes we have seen in two of these
matters and will continue to follow and speak up for justice
for the persecuted. We encourage you to stay informed and involved
on these issues.
Read
past Washington Updates.
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