Immigration Agents Don’t Follow The Law When It Comes To Asylum Seekers

ThinkProgress

A Bangladeshi asylum seeker who arrived at the southern U.S. border was turned away after a border agent told him to seek asylum in Mexico. Another Central American asylum seeker was told by an immigration agent that he would be deported, regardless of whether he signed a statement testifying that he would be at risk of persecution or torture if he was returned to his country. And yet a third immigrant was told that it would be “better if you just ask to be deported” or “we’re going to throw you out.”

These anecdotes come from a new report by a U.S. government commission that makes federal policy recommendations, which documented the inconsistent experiences with immigration agents that asylum seekers and refugees encountered when they claimed a credible fear of being returned to their home countries and were instead put into an expedited removal process from the United States.

In the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report — which follows up on a two-volume report released more than ten years ago — researchers found that these immigrants continue to confront barriers found in the 2005 report, including agents who did not refer immigrants to other agencies when they expressed a fear of being returned, openly skeptical or hostile agents, and a lack of official interpreters.

Asylum seekers and refugee have the legal right to ask for humanitarian relief either at the border or within the United States if they can prove that they have a valid reason to stay in the country. Under U.S. law, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have to document that an asylum seeker or refugee expressed fear, then send that person’s file to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency, which is responsible for assessing the fear claim, known as a credible fear determination. But researchers found that initial interviewers sometimes sent immigrants home without sending their files on to the proper immigration agencies. [MORE]