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Category: Asylum

  • Priti Patel wants to imprison refugees for following international law

    Asylum-seekers trying to come to the UK on small boats, and their people-smuggling enablers, will face heavier prison sentences in a bid to prevent “asylum shopping”, the Home Office has announced.

    However, despite the claim that these vulnerable people ‘shop around’, the UK actually sees considerably fewer asylum applications than neighbouring countries like France and Germany. Moreover, the support UK asylum-seekers receive is minimal.

    A “broken” system?

    The stricter enforcements form part of the Nationality and Borders Bill. The bill is due for its first reading in the House of Commons on 6 July. And it’s part of home secretary Priti Patel’s pledge to “fix” the UK’s “broken asylum system”.

    Other Conservative home secretaries have vowed to fix the asylum system in the 11 years that the party has been in power. The system seems to remain allegedly “broken” despite the party being demonstrably in charge of it for over a decade.

    A clause contained in the new Home Office legislation will broaden the offence of arriving ‘unlawfully’. If the bill passes, the offence would encompass arrival as well as entry into the UK. The move is designed to allow those who are intercepted in UK territorial seas to be brought into the country to be prosecuted, aides said.

    ‘Asylum shopping’

    The proposed legislation intends to make it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission. And the maximum sentence for those entering the country ‘unlawfully’ could rise from six months’ imprisonment to four years.

    The government also plans to increase the tariff for people smugglers. And those found guilty could face a life term behind bars, up from the current maximum of 14 years. The Home Office said the sterner punishments were a bid to prevent “asylum shopping”. The department alleges some asylum-seekers are “picking the UK as a preferred destination over others” when asylum could have been claimed earlier in their journey through Europe.

    The bill’s unveiling comes after record numbers of people have made the perilous journey across the English Channel this year. Nearly 6,000 people reached the UK in small boats in the first six months of 2021. A total of 8,417 reached the UK in 2020.

    Britain as a “preferred destination”?

    Answering whether the UK has “more asylum-seekers than most countries”, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) writes:

    No, it does not. In the year ending September 2020, the UK received 31,752 asylum applications from main applicants only.

    Over the same period,  asylum applications to other EU countries have also seen a slight increase. In the year ending March 2020 (the latest period for which data is currently available), the highest number of first-time asylum applicants was registered in Germany with 155,295 first-time applicants followed by France with 129,480, Spain with 128,520 and Greece with 81,465.

    These four Members States account for around three quarters of all first-time applicants in the EU-27. These figures include  all asylum applicants, not just main applicants (i.e. including children and other dependents). World-wide  around  85%  of all refugees live in developing regions , not in wealthy industrialised countries.

    The reality

    On how many refugees live in the UK, UNHCR notes:

    According to UNHCR statistics, at the end of 2019 there were  133,094  refugees, 61,968 pending asylum cases  and  161  stateless persons  in the UK. The vast majority of refugees – 4 out of 5 – stay in their region of displacement, and consequently are hosted by  developing countries. Turkey now hosts the highest number of refugees with 3.6  million, followed by Pakistan with 1.4 million.

    As of 2020, Germany had a refugee population of 1.77 million people. In 2019, France had a refugee population of around 400,000 people.

    Writing for The Canary on the government failure to swiftly process asylum applications, Joe Glenton argued:

    Bashing poor and desperate people is what UK governments are all about. But the figures tell a story. A majority of displaced people in the EU, and many who make it to the UK, are victims of UK foreign policy. There are reasons that places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are so well represented in refugee statistics and the UK’s ever-growing asylum-seeker backlog.

    Criminalising the refugees we helped create

    Officials said the draft law was about “sending a clear message to migrants thinking about paying people smugglers to make dangerous and illegal journeys to the UK”.

    Cabinet minister Patel said:

    The Nationality and Borders Bill contains vital measures to fix the UK’s broken asylum system.

    Our new plan for immigration is fair but firm.

    We will welcome people through safe and legal routes whilst preventing abuse of the system, cracking down on illegal entry and the criminality associated with it.

    The Conservative election manifesto promised to change the immigration system. Patel in March said she wanted to tackle “illegal migration head-on”. It came as she announced what she called the “most significant overhaul of our asylum system in decades” in a bid to “deter illegal entry into the UK”.

    But according to Refugee Council:

    There is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ or ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim

    It is recognised in the 1951 Convention that people fleeing persecution may have to use irregular means in order to escape and claim asylum in another country – there is no legal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum

    Not our problem

    The Home Office, when announcing the bill, said it was:

    very likely that those travelling to the UK via small boat will have come from a safe European Union country in which they could have claimed asylum.

    The department added:

    Where this is the case, they are not seeking refuge at the earliest opportunity or showing good reason for seeking to enter the UK illegally but are instead ‘asylum shopping’ by picking the UK as a preferred destination over others and using an illegal route to get here.

    However, because of its geographical location, it’s incredibly unlikely that any asylum seeker could reach the UK without first passing through a “safe European country”. With this in mind, the Home Office is effectively arguing that the UK shouldn’t have to take in any refugees or asylum seekers. And that the responsibility should fall entirely on our neighbours – a situation which is largely already the case.

    According to figures the government shared in March, around 62% of all claims are from people who have entered the UK “illegally”. And 42,000 failed asylum seekers are still living in the country.

    ‘Deliberately misleading myths and untruths’

    The Home Office said changes brought about by the bill would take into account how someone entered the UK for any subsequent asylum claim. The department would consider whether the applicant’s arrival was ‘legal’ or not, and their status in the UK if that claim is successful.

    The Whitehall department added that it will also attempt to prevent individuals making repeated “meritless” asylum claims designed to delay their removal.

    Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said:

    While the Home Office continues to make no safe and legal routes to the UK available for those claiming asylum, some people will continue to be forced to risk their lives to do so – including in small boats across the Channel.

    Instead of peddling deliberately misleading myths and untruths about asylum and migration, the Home Office should be establishing safe routes for those few people escaping persecution who wish to seek asylum here.

    Divide and rule

    The truth is that Britain receives about as many refugees as you’d expect for an island at the edge of a populated continent.

    The Tories don’t want people to know that because they want people to be angry. Angry at the small number of desperate people who come here. Angry enough to ignore that the Tories have been scapegoating refugees while destroying the welfare state for over a decade.

    Imprisoning asylum seekers won’t fix a problem that doesn’t exist. It will, however, give yet another home secretary yet another chance to virtue signal to the voters who eat this stuff up.

    Featured image via Ggia/ Wikimedia

    By John Shafthauer

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Biden Starts to Hit Stride on Asylum Protections

    World Refugee Day (June 20) marked six months of the Biden Administration.  In that time, The Advocates and other organizations have been extremely disappointed with the President’s failure to deliver on promises for swift and bold action on immigration and human rights.  While we celebrated the first days of Administration with executive orders ending the Muslim and African Bans, laying-out plans for asylum protections, stopping harmful Trump-era regulations, pausing funding for the Border Wall, and sending comprehensive immigration reform to Congress, enthusiasm had given way to concerns as months passed with the Biden Administration failing to take decisive action, continuing the status quo, and waffling on crucial rights issues.   

    Yet, almost as if it’s awoken and decided to meet the moment, there have recently been some  exciting actions on immigration from President Biden.  The Advocates views these steps as crucial, positive, and exciting, but remains cautions that the Administration must maintain its commitment, energy and resolve in not only undoing harmful Trump-era immigration policy but leading bold and visionary change that eschews political decisions to ensure our immigration system is safe, orderly, transparent, just and protects the dignity and rights of all people.   

    The changes The Administration has recently announced  include:   

    1. Vacating harmful and illegal Attorney General decisions on asylum issued under the Trump Administration to dismantle protections for victims of gender-based, family and gang violence. 

    Attorney General Garland announced on June 16 that the Department of Justice would vacate several Trump-era decisions that resulted in the denial of thousands of claims.  Attorney General Sessions and Attorney General Barr referred the cases of Matter of A- B- and Matter of L- E- A- to themselves.  Not only is such a move by an Attorney General highly unusual, but the move made it nearly impossible for an asylum seeker to prevail on fears of persecution based on gender and family violence (Matter of A- B-) or gang violence targeted at family members (Matter of L- E- A-).  This, despite the fact that international law is clear that such claims can be sufficient to trigger obligations against removal under the Refugee Convention to which the U.S. is a party.   

    Immigration advocacy groups, including The Advocates, have been calling for the Biden Administration to vacate these decisions as well as Matter of A- C- A- A- for months, including in a recent letter signed by more than 300 organizations.  The Attorney General’s announcement, therefore, is a welcome step toward bringing U.S. asylum law in-line with international obligations and best practices.  Yet, more remains to be done not just to undo the harms of the Trump Administration but to more wholistically reform the asylum system to meet international standards and ensure protections are not eroded in the future.  The Advocates will be continuing our work to advocate for Congressional reform as well as regulations from President Biden to this effect.          

    1. Plans for a regulation  on asylum processing  

    The Advocates supports the plan to allow asylum seekers who present themselves at the U.S. border or ports and show a credible fear of persecution or torture to process their claims with the U.S. Asylum Office instead of going through immigration court. Under the current system, people presenting themselves at U.S. ports of entry (such as the border) to seek asylum must present their case in immigration court upon a showing of a credible fear of persecution.  This, despite the fact that immigration courts are facing years-long backlogs and also present an adversarial system that is inappropriate for vulnerable and trauma-impacted people.  The proposed change would increase efficiency and uphold our commitment to protecting the rights of asylum seekers. The Advocates is awaiting the text of this regulation and hopes that it reflects the newer, bolder vision the Administration has hinted.  We will look forward to submitting comments on the proposed rule. 

    1. Plans for a regulation on Particular Social Groups in asylum applications 

    The Advocates welcomes plans for rulemaking that would clarify and codify the proper standard for asylum claims based on Particular Social Group (PSG).  Under the UN Refugee Convention, parties such as the U.S. must provide asylum protections to people who have a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of their membership in a PSG.  The drafters purposely left definition of PSG undefined in recognition of the fact that the ways in which humans do harm to each other is always evolving and must be left vague so as not to foreclose valid claims in the future.  The U.S. has long used the Matter of Acosta standard, which broadly defined PSG as members sharing a characteristic that a person either cannot change or should not have to change.  Yet, under the Trump Administration, we saw attempts to severely narrow these protections—something they were able to do because of the lack of controlling guidance in legislation or precedent codifying Acosta at a higher level.  A regulatory action that codifies this standard would protect bona fide claims while increasing administrative efficiency by ensuring immigration judges and asylum officers are not left to ping pong between standards with each change of administration.  

    The Advocates further calls for ensuring that any such regulation specifically include gender-based and sex-based claims as meeting the PSG definition.  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Guidelines on implementation and interpretation of the Refugee Convention is clear that persecution on account of someone’s gender (such as domestic violence, Female Genital Mutilation, and more) falls within the Convention’s protections.  Yet, the Trump Administration attempted to erode and foreclose those protections through the Attorneys General decisions in a number of appealed cases—decisions that must be overruled and clarified through regulation to keep US law in-line with international standards and our obligations.   

    1. Plans for regulations rescinding or modifying numerous Trump-era regulations that sought to gut asylum protections and due process in immigration proceedings 

    The Advocates welcomes the plan to rescind or modify numerous harmful Trump-era regulations on immigration.  In 2020 alone, the Administration issued more than 20 proposed regulations, which is hastily finalized before leaving office, aimed at eroding immigrant rights, and asylum in particular.  The Advocates fought against these actions by submitting extensive comments in opposition to the changes.  And, the courts agreed with the challenges, issuing injunctions in litigation brought by other groups on nearly every regulation finalized.   

    The Biden Administration must rescind these regulations to both uphold court findings on the illegality of the rules and to ensure US law meets international standards.  Further, however, The Advocates believes the Biden Administration must work to not only restore protections in U.S. law, but to push beyond them.  U.S. immigration law is outdated, unjust, and harmful.  Rooted in old concepts of nationalism and exclusion, rather than human rights and a globalized world, U.S. immigration law creates harsh lines and bars that do not allow people to move with dignity.  The law also harshly intertwines the immigration system and criminal justice systems, barring immigration options for criminal issues, including even where there is no conviction.  The Biden Administration—and the 117th Congress—have an opportunity to take bold steps on immigration reform to ensure our system fits the realities of the 21st century, adequately protects human rights in-line with our international treaty obligations and US law, and build a robust immigration system that reflects the benefits of safe, orderly and clear migration.    

    1. Plans for regulations to comprehensively address asylum  

    We look forward to seeing President Biden issue a broad, visionary and protective regulation making important changes to further—not narrow—asylum.  This is anticipated in late 2021 or early 2022.  The Advocates will be vigorously advocating to ensure any comprehensive regulation meets or exceeds international standards.   

    1. An announcement on plans for cancelling and revising use of Border Wall funding 

    President Biden issued a plan to cancel any border wall projects that involved diverted funds; end expansion to the extent permitted by law; and address safety and environmental issues resulting from construction under the Trump Administration.  Instead, it plans to use funds to address root causes of migration from Central America ($861 million), support the immigration courts and US Citizenship and Immigration Services to more fairly and effectively run ($345 million), and advance modern solutions for border management ($1.2 billion). 

    While we welcome these changes, we caution the Administration not to use these funds as an excuse to expand surveillance and harmful technologies.  The Administration has stated that it “calls on Congress to cancel any border barrier funds that remain at the end of the year so that these resources can instead be used for modern, privacy-protective, and effective border management measures like enhanced technology between points of entry and improved infrastructure at Land Ports of Entry.”  We welcome the recognition that technological approaches to border security must be “privacy-protective,” but remain concern about the proliferation of technology and enhanced surveillance in President Biden’s immigration policies.  Rather than taking a more humane and logical approach to immigration and border security, which recognizes the nature of human movement, Biden appears to be replacing the Trump-era physical barriers with technological ones.  While the Biden Administration’s more inclusive and human rights-based rhetoric is welcome, these efforts threaten to sidestep human rights around privacy, present continued barriers to meaningful access to asylum, and raise equity issues given the overwhelmingly negative impact of surveillance on BIPOC communities who are victim to technology’s failure to distinguish certain races.   

     The Advocates has also welcomed the Administration’s moves on protections for victims of crimes as well as some steps toward reducing detention and restoring immigration judicial independence.  In the past few months, President Biden issued new policies restoring Prosecutorial Discretion by DHS attorneys to dismiss, decline to prosecute, or agree to terminate certain cases in immigration proceedings.  This is welcome news as many of The Advocates clients will benefit from these actions which will allow trafficking victims and immigrant youth who have experienced abuse, abandonment or neglect—among others—time to pursue protections outside of immigration court.  Earlier, we also welcomed news that the Administration would revoke the harmful Trump-era policy of sending people to immigration court who were denied immigration benefit applications.  In addition, the new Enforcement Priorities memo should reduce backlog in immigration courts, decrease the number of people detained, and conserve government resources by targeting a narrower group of people for immigration enforcement rather than the broad groups of undocumented people sought after under President Trump.   

    While these moves and others signal intentions from President Biden to take a more humane and logical approach to migration, The Advocates is concerned about the effect in practice.  We continue to see people held in detention despite the guidance against such.  While the new prosecutorial discretion memo should help many of our clients, it may take time for the local actors to implement it without clear directives from the Administration.  And, despite the many positive actions promised on asylum and victim’s protections, we remain concerned about the expulsions under Title 42 and strong rhetoric against seeking asylum coming from the Biden Administration as it appears to remain concerned about political expediencies. 

    The Advocates has worked on immigration policy for nearly 40 years.  We fought vigorously against the harmful policies of the Trump Administration, and looked forward to the Biden Administration delivering on promises around immigration and human rights.  Yet, the first six months have been a very slow start, raising concerns about the fulfillment of those promises and any likelihood of visionary action.  The announcements last week do present some glimmers that President Biden may meet the moment, eschew political gamesmanship, and do the right thing on immigration.   

    By Lindsey Greising, Staff Attorney with The Advocates for Human Rights 

    This post was originally published on The Advocates Post.

  • Win for families as High Court rules Home Office asylum guidance is unlawful

    Part of the Home Office’s guidance on reuniting unaccompanied child asylum seekers (UAMs) with their families in the UK is unlawful, the High Court has ruled.

    Legal action

    Safe Passage, a charity that supports child refugees, took legal action against the Home Office over how caseworkers are told to process requests for UAMs to be reunited with family members in the UK. Under European legislation, child refugees can have their asylum claims transferred to another country if they have family there. A “take charge request” can be issued so they can travel to that country to be with their family and the claim is assessed there instead.

    At a hearing in May, lawyers representing Safe Passage said the Home Office’s guidance on how officials process these requests is “causing delay and misery” for UAMs abroad and is unlawful.

    In a ruling on 2 July, the High Court found that part of the guidance requiring caseworkers to reject a request after two months “even where inquiries had not yet established whether a family link existed and/or whether it would be in the UAM’s best interests to have their claim decided in the UK” was unlawful.

    Lord justice Dingemans also ruled that previous guidance which said that “information should be obtained from a local authority only once the family link had been established was erroneous in law”.

    The judge, sitting with justice Dove, said that that guidance, which has since been replaced, “mis-stated the law” when it said that local authorities would only be asked to undertake an assessment with the UAM’s family “once the family link has been established”.

    Dingemans said:

    This advice established a bright line that the local authority should not undertake an assessment with the family or relative until the family link had been established.

    He added:

    The fact that guidance directed to caseworkers gives advice which is erroneous in law may lead to unlawful decisions. This does not assist UAMs, who may have been wrongly denied the right to re-join family members while the claim for asylum was being processed.

    It does not assist the Secretary of State, who may have acted in breach of obligations and may have made decisions which were unlawful and which are liable to be set aside.

    Unlawful

    The High Court made a declaration that “specific parts of the guidance” are unlawful, but did not overturn the guidance as a whole as “there are substantial parts of the policy guidance which are not erroneous in law”.

    In a statement after the ruling, Jennine Walker, head of UK legal and arrivals at Safe Passage, said:

    Our success in this legal challenge will offer hope to many child refugees desperate to safely reunite with their families in the UK, who were wrongly turned away by the Home Office.

    It should never have taken court action for the Home Office to decide applications fairly and lawfully, and we urge the Government to put these wrongs right by swiftly reuniting those refugee families whose applications were refused.

    Featured image by John Ranson for The Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies: A 2021 Don & Arvonne Fraser Human Rights Award Winner

    The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) at UC Hastings College of the Law protects human rights by working in the intersections of gender and migration. Karen Musalo, the founding director of GGRS, served as the lead attorney in Matter of Kasinga. In this groundbreaking 1996 legal victory, she won protection for Fauziya Kassindja, a young woman from Togo. Ms. Kassindja had fled to the United States to escape female genital mutilation (FGM) and a forced polygamous marriage to a much older man. The decision in this case established FGM as a recognized form of persecution – and it was the first time in the U.S. that asylum was granted to an asylee based on gender.  

    Since its inception in 1999, CGRS has been an important partner of The Advocates. Over the years, CGRS has provided invaluable services to support individual asylum cases, led litigation to challenge the government’s improper implementation of immigration laws, and developed innovative practices. For example, CGRS staff started to partner with psychologists in representing traumatized asylum seekers – a practice that has since become standard. CGRS has grown into an internationally respected resource for gender asylum, renowned for its knowledge of the law and ability to combine sophisticated legal strategies with policy, advocacy, training, technical assistance, litigation, and human rights interventions. Volunteer attorneys from around the country benefit from the support and resources of CGRS. 

    The Advocates’ board member and volunteer attorney Sam Myers praises the work of CGRS:  

    “In my work with The Advocates, representing Central American children seeking Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and asylum, the substantive research and tactical mentorship of the staff at CGRS has been invaluable. They are thorough, creative, and aware of the needs of volunteer lawyers. Their title understates the activist nature of their organization and their extraordinary value to volunteer lawyers.” 

    CGRS protects the fundamental human rights of refugee women, children, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others who flee persecution and gender-based violence in their home countries. In fact, CGRS has played a key role in every major precedent-setting victory in gender-based asylum claims, breaking new legal ground and dramatically expanding the availability of protection for asylum seekers. In one important case last year, CGRS and the American Civil Liberties Union successfully challenged the previous administration’s attempts to roll back asylum protections for victims fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality. 

    CGRS takes the lead on controversial issues, participates as co-counsel or amicus curiae in impact litigation, produces an extensive library of litigation support materials, maintains an unsurpassed database of asylum records and decisions, and works in coalitions with immigrant, refugee, LGBTQ+, children’s, and women’s rights networks. CGRS has been an essential ally of The Advocates and similar organizations providing life-saving legal representation to asylum seekers and working for immigration policy that reflects human rights principles.

    Sarah Brenes, the director of The Advocates’ Refugee and Immigrant Program, explains: 

    “Asylum protections took a hard blow over the past four years. The prior administration took direct aim at granting asylum for gender-based claims, trying to take back advancements in protecting domestic violence survivors and people affected by gang violence. At the same time, we saw unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers driven from their homes, seeking safety in the U.S. Coordination among agencies like CGRS and The Advocates proved critical to respond to individuals, and litigation prevented harmful regulations from going into effect.”  

    For more than 20 years, CGRS has also engaged in international human rights work to address the underlying causes of forced migrations that produce refugees – namely, violence and persecution, committed with impunity when governments fail to protect their citizens. This unwavering commitment to promoting human rights inspires us and makes us hopeful for the future. It is with great honor that The Advocates for Human Rights presents a 2021 Don & Arvonne Fraser Human Rights Award to CGRS.  

    Please join us on Thursday, June 24 for the Human Rights Awards Dinner to celebrate CGRS and all of our 2021 award recipients. RSVP on our website to receive access information. 

    This post was originally published on The Advocates Post.

  • Gratitude: Featuring Stephanie Mistry

    In May, HRI celebrated a win for one of our affirmative asylum clients, a young woman from Zimbabwe who had fled her home country due to political persecution by the Zimbabwean government. She was represented by Stephanie Mistry, one of HRI’s stellar pro bono attorneys. Stephanie has been volunteering with HRI since 2009. Over the years, she has represented 13 HRI clients and their family members helping them obtain various forms of humanitarian relief. Stephanie has worked tirelessly over the years and we’re incredibly grateful for Stephanie’s dedication to our clients.

    The post Gratitude: Featuring Stephanie Mistry appeared first on Human Rights Initiative.

    This post was originally published on Blog – Human Rights Initiative.

  • Blaise Masinga: The Journey to Regaining Self-Power

    Photo from The Masinga Foundation: https://www.masingafoundation.org/

    In a room full of refugees and asylum seekers, Blaise Masinga is reminded of the time when he was in their shoes. He had fled from South Africa to Minnesota, leaving behind his wife and two children. Pain, trauma, and uncertainty are still on the forefront of his mind when he thinks about that time. Similar to the journeys of many other asylum seekers, Blaise’s path to safety and reunification with his family was long, unpredictable, anxiety-filled, and lonesome.

    South Africa had actually been his refuge after fleeing from his birth country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a teenager. He had built a life in South Africa. He attended university and received a degree in marketing from the Institute of Marketing Management. He married and welcomed the first two of his children into the world. He advanced in his professional career. By 2010, he achieved the opportunity to work as a business manager for a multinational company connected to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Africa. Outside work, Blaise noticed many forms of racism and discrimination. As a refugee himself, he became an activist for immigrant and refugee rights. After spotting corruption in a work project, he spoke up. For Blaise, speaking out against injustices was natural, but it also made him a wanted man and became the reason he fled from South Africa in 2012.

    With his safety compromised, Blaise left his family, his home, his career, his community, his activism, and found himself empty-handed seeking asylum in Minneapolis. He didn’t know it at the time, but it would be four long years before he was reunited with his family. Remembering these years, he said, “I should’ve known that the process to win an asylum case in the United States is a long journey that requires patience. It was a painful experience to leave my wife and kids.” At times he felt helpless and had to regain his sense of agency over his life. “Let me be honest,” Blaise says with a smile on his face, “the first good resource I found was The Advocates for Human Rights.” The Advocates staff connected Blaise with a pro bono lawyer who helped Blaise win his asylum case. Through a social work intern at the organization, he was also connected to two other important resources that helped him through this difficult time: the Center for Victims of Torture that helped him meet basic needs, and the Mennonite church that provided him with a community. All of those combined gave Blaise the right tools to begin rebuilding his life in the United States. During this time, Blaise volunteered with many nonprofit organizations, and worked as a French to English interpreter for refugees, a cashier at Target and a bank teller. Blaise’s patience, stamina, and willingness to fight for himself all played a crucial role in him reclaiming his independence.

    The Masinga Foundation https://www.masingafoundation.org/

    Blaise gained asylum and built up his independence, returning to school in 2016 for a “mini masters” in Project Management from the University of St. Thomas. Still, he faced more challenges. The racial discrimination Blaise faced was like his experiences as a refugee in South Africa. “In the United States, someone judges you for your accent, but not your brain,” he began. “Don’t let your circumstances pull you back, because otherwise you aren’t going to win.” This resilience, and his experiences as a refugee, changed his vision and plans once again. He redirected his focus in 2018 and enrolled at Metropolitan State University to earn a degree in community development. “I believe we were called to make a difference in people’s lives,” Blaise said. This dedication to honesty and helping others, which led to him being forced out of South Africa, has been a driving force behind his work in community development. Blaise recently started his own nonprofit organization, the Masinga Foundation. Their work will focus on community empowerment for immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized communities.

    By Rielle Miguel, Undergraduate Student from the University of Minnesota and Spring 2021 Development Intern.

    The Advocates for Human Rights is a nonprofit organization dedicated to implementing international human rights standards to promote civil society and reinforce the rule of law.

    Curious about volunteering? Please reach out. The Advocates for Human Rights has an opportunity for you.

    Eager to see change? Give to our mission, our vision, our work. Your gift matters.

    This post was originally published on The Advocates Post.

  • The Robert Mueller of Latin America

    Guatemala sends more migrants to the U.S. than anywhere in Central America. What is driving so many people to leave?

    Crusading prosecutor Iván Velásquez has been called the Robert Mueller of Latin America. He’s known for jailing presidents and paramilitaries.

    But Velásquez met his match when he went after Jimmy Morales, a television comedian who was elected president of Guatemala. Morales found an ally in then-U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Like the alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine that prompted Trump’s impeachment, the details can seem confusing – but, ultimately, Velásquez says, both parties got what they wanted: Morales got Trump to pull U.S. support for an international anti-corruption force that was going after his family. And he says Trump secured Guatemala’s support for some of his most controversial policies, both in the Middle East and on immigration.

    Veteran radio journalist Maria Martin teams up with Reveal’s Anayansi Diaz-Cortes for this week’s show. Martin takes us to Huehuetenango, a province near Guatemala’s border with Mexico that sends more migrants to the U.S. than anywhere in Central America. There, she shows that Trump’s hard-line immigration policies did nothing to slow the movement of people from Guatemala to the southern border of the U.S.

    This is an update of an episode that originally aired Aug. 29, 2020.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Changing The Border Narrative

    Much of the public discussion of our southern border today is one-sided. It is most often created by those with the most power and the loudest bullhorn; those in search of power, authority and money. So, it should come as no surprise to you that much of what we have been told about the border and of those who come to it are either not true or are highly exaggerated. It is after all the result of nearly a hundred years worth of the Border Patrol’s racist rhetoric and racist politicians creating ever more unfair and biased laws and policies. Many of which have little to do with creating an immigration system and more about scapegoating migrants for political and racist purposes while trying to make money off it. For more on this history, please take a look at this recent amicus brief on the history of our immigration laws.

    The post Changing The Border Narrative appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Biden’s Policies Won’t Address the Roots of the Migrant Crisis — They’ll Fuel It

    People mourn during a candlight vigil

    Mexico City, Mexico — Migrant justice activists are sounding the alarm bell over President Joe Biden’s handling of the arrival of thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S. southern border and are calling on Biden to follow through on his commitment to address the root causes of migration.

    “What we have here is people fleeing from conditions that they can no longer stand — this is a humanitarian issue,” Roxana Bendezú, executive director and founder of Migrant Roots Media, told Truthout.

    Far from treating the border crisis as a humanitarian issue, the Biden administration has continued to expel the vast majority of adult migrants through the use of the Trump-era Title 42 emergency declaration concerning COVID-19, which closed the border to “nonessential” travel under the pretext of limiting the spread of the coronavirus. Some asylum seekers have even been whisked away in the middle of the night without a hearing, leading activists to compare Biden’s treatment of asylum-seekers to Trump’s. Biden himself has even publicly boasted about the number of migrants his government is expelling. Like Trump, the Biden administration has also continued to apply diplomatic pressure on Mexico and Guatemala to use its security forces to contain the movement of migrants.

    A lack of planning and infrastructure means the U.S. has struggled to house newly arrived unaccompanied children, who are exempted from Title 42. Images of children packed in “processing centers” and families sleeping under bridges play across people’s screens on the evening news, providing fodder to anti-migrant politicians who accuse Biden of provoking the crisis. The situation has become so dire that children in immigration custody have been taken to a military base in El Paso that could be highly contaminated and potentially hazardous, according to a statement from Earthjustice.

    Following demands made by migrant justice activists, the Biden administration seemed poised to differentiate itself from Trump by addressing the “root causes” of migration.

    However, migrant justice activists say the government’s strategy will have little impact due to the emphasis on methods that have previously failed the people of Central America.

    Bendezú said Biden’s $4 billion strategy for Central America is a continuation of policies that, instead of addressing the root causes of migration, represent an effort to perpetuate a model of economic development that is responsible for the exodus of people from the region to the U.S.

    “It’s a tactic to confuse people,” said Bendezú.

    In its analysis of Biden’s proposals for Central America, Migrant Roots Media concluded that, much like 2014’s “Alliance for Prosperity,” Biden’s new plan is largely centered on increasing private investment in Guatemala and Honduras.

    In a report for TomDispatch, historian Aviva Chomsky also concluded that the Biden administration’s proposal for Central America differed little from previous plans and would promote a model “that Washington has imposed on the countries of Central America over the past century, one that’s left its lands corrupt, violent, and impoverished, and so continued to uproot Central Americans and send them fleeing toward the United States.”

    Roberto Lovato, a Salvadoran American writer and political analyst, said that if the U.S. is interested in tackling the root causes of the crisis, U.S. politicians need to take a look at their own policies in the region.

    “If you’re going to talk about the root causes of the crisis in Central America, you’d have to start off with U.S. economic policies of expropriation of resources and exploitation of labor, neoliberal economic policies that create mega-projects that destroy the environment and displace hundreds of thousands of people,” Lovato told Truthout.

    Lovato said U.S. policy in Central America has never been driven by a concern for the welfare of people from the region but instead by the desire of U.S. politicians from both parties to protect “U.S. interests” in the region.

    “There is a crisis in Central America, but it is not a new crisis, it’s not the crisis you see on television, it’s the crisis you see in history,” said Lovato. “And the history of U.S. policy is one of catastrophes created by U.S. economic policies that enrich the minority and impoverish the majority.”

    Biden Doubles Down

    Rather than abandon these failed economic policies, the Biden administration has instead opted to double down on efforts to dissuade people from attempting the journey, with the Department of State having placed more than 28,000 radio ads on stations throughout Central America and Brazil.

    Bendezú said she considers it “dehumanizing” and “disrespectful” to think that radio ads are going to stop people from fleeing an untenable situation in their countries of origin.

    Figures reviewed by Reuters showed that in March U.S. authorities caught more than 171,000 migrants at the U.S. border with Mexico, representing the highest monthly total in two decades.

    “It’s not that they don’t know the risks that they’re taking but the desperation is so huge that they see no other option,” said Bendezú.

    In response to criticism of his handling of the immigration issue, President Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris as his point person on immigration and the border and also tapped Ricardo Zúñiga as his special envoy for Central America. Comments by officials suggest that neither is expected to deviate from Biden’s existing strategy.

    Lovato says Biden’s selection of Roberto Zúñiga as envoy is particularly telling.

    “Instead of sending somebody with experience doing humanitarian work to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Central America … you send somebody whose specialty is keeping U.S. economic and military policies in place,” said Lovato, pointing to Zúñiga’s role on President Obama’s National Security Council.

    Zúñiga is Honduran born and comes from a long line of supporters of the National Party in Honduras, which has ruled the country since the 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya, which was consolidated thanks to the intervention of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    U.S. Silence on the “Root Causes” of the Honduran Exodus

    Former National Party Congressman Tony Hernández, brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, was recently sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, who described the case as one of “state-sponsored” drug trafficking. The Honduran president has consistently denied any role in drug trafficking but nonetheless hired a Washington law firm to lobby U.S. prosecutors to desist in their case.

    In power since 2014, Hernández has been strongly criticized by Honduran social movements for his authoritarian rule and policies that have led to increased poverty, displacement, and marginalization of the country’s poor and working class.

    Tomás Andino Mencía, a former Honduran lawmaker and a member of the Convergence Against Reelection movement, believes that Hernández’s rule has been one of the major forces pushing people to migrate.

    “The cause of the exodus is not just because of the economic or social situation, like poverty and violence that we know exists, but also because of a political cause, that is the despair that exists in the population. A lack of hope that the country’s conditions will improve. That’s also why the population flees.… They don’t want a future in Honduras with a government of drug traffickers,” Mencía told the Honduras Now podcast in a recent episode.

    Hernández was reelected to office in 2017 in a vote that was largely condemned as fraudulent. The country is due to hold general elections in November that could see the National Party remain in power. Honduras held primary elections in March in a process that observers such as Mencía claimed was rife with irregularities, a situation that does not augur well for the general elections.

    “If [an electoral fraud] happens again at this moment, with the conditions brought about by the pandemic and in the conditions that two hurricanes have left us, this could mean a situation much worse than what we saw happen in 2017 and this could generate a humanitarian disaster on a national level,” said Mencía.

    Yet the U.S. Department of State, frequently vocal about allegations of corruption and fraud in Latin America, has been conspicuously silent about President Juan Orlando Hernández’s alleged ties to drug trafficking and the evidence of electoral fraud in Honduras’s primary elections.

    “If they were to talk about the corruption, drug trafficking … the fiction of their whole immigration and foreign policy in Central America would be obvious,” said Lovato. “You’re not going to see Antony Blinken, or Ricardo Zúñiga, or any of the other State Department and U.S. government operatives saying anything about Hernández.… U.S. policy helped create Hernández, beginning with the coup in Honduras that was sponsored by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.”

    Activists and advocates have strongly criticized Democratic politicians for refusing to acknowledge the role of Obama’s policies and pinning the crisis at the border on Trump’s policies alone, in an effort to obtain political gain, only to later implement similar plans.

    Indeed, this week it came to light that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reportedly told ICE staff at a recent meeting that the department is considering restarting construction on some parts of the border wall in order to plug in what he described as “gaps,” despite having previously committed to halting construction of Trump’s border wall.

    Lovato, who recently published a memoir called Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas, called on the public to see the connection between the Central American exodus and U.S. foreign policies that have been enacted by politicians from both parties, saying, “you can’t just sweep everything under the rug of Donald Trump.”

    Lovato also called on the public to stop dehumanizing migrants and asylum seekers, and decried the mainstream media’s circulation of two-dimensional images of their suffering.

    “You have no Central Americans in three dimensions — that’s called dehumanization and that’s what you need to sustain the policies that exist,” said Lovato. “If you actually start naming Central Americans … then you’re going to have to change the policy because those people would become human beings.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The Border Patrol Is The Crisis

    It’s no surprise that there are claims of a new crisis on our border. A new year, a new administration, new policies in regard to who can cross and how they are processed will always bring a crisis claim from one side or the other. Depending on which side you are on politically often determines how you feel about migrants coming to our country. Conservatives usually feel we allow too many migrants to enter; liberals believe we should allow more.

    That is a generalized statement of course. There are all sorts of nuances about our immigration policies and what we believe to be the best course of action. In my activism, I have come across few who believe we should have completely closed or completely open borders. Most want humane immigration laws, but with some reasonable amount of precautions to protect Americans from truly dangerous people.

    The post The Border Patrol Is The Crisis appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Complexities at the Border Are Lost as Media, GOP Paint Situation as a “Surge”

    Photos released by Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar's office show conditions inside a USCBP facility in Donna, Texas, over the weekend.

    As corporate media and Republicans paint the influx of unaccompanied children on the U.S.-Mexico border as a “crisis” and “surge,” advocates and attorneys tell Truthout that legal and logistical complexities are being lost in these distorted portrayals.

    The Biden administration, they say, faces the challenges of inheriting an asylum system that former President Donald Trump systematically dismantled, in addition to those posed by the ongoing global pandemic.

    The increase in crossings is happening in part because 70,000 asylum seekers were already in line, stuck in Mexico after being forced to wait there under Trump’s restrictive Migrant Protection Protocols, according to advocates. The situation is not quite a “surge,” they point out, but a regular seasonal influx of asylum-seeking children bolstered by a backlog of demand because of last year’s COVID-19 border closure.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recorded a 28 percent increase in migrants apprehended from January to February 2021, from 78,442 to 100,441. But CBP’s own numbers show that undocumented immigration tends to spike in the spring. While last year’s number were down, due to the pandemic, fiscal year 2019 saw total apprehensions increase 31 percent during the same period — a bigger rise than we saw this February.

    That doesn’t mean the numbers aren’t high. While the increase in apprehensions began during the final months of the Trump administration, the numbers are on track to reach a level not seen in 20 years, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged last week.

    Moreover, the Biden administration needs to be moving faster, immigrant rights advocates say, to make critical changes to the asylum system that would allow the administration to release more kids held in CBP, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) camps and facilities in Donna, Carrizo Springs, Dallas and other sites throughout Texas.

    Such changes, they say, are also necessary to alleviate a public relations disaster as the Biden administration scrambles to find bed space for the rising number of children crossing the border and blocks press from accessing CBP camps. A number of media outlets have published photos released by Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar revealing crowded conditions for immigrant and refugee children at the camps.

    U.S. Border Patrol overflow facility in Donna, Texas.
    U.S. Border Patrol overflow facility in Donna, Texas.

    During a press conference Thursday, President Joe Biden said officials are working to open more facilities for children currently being processed, and move them more swiftly into homes. He also said he would grant media access to the facilities but declined to give an exact date.

    “Really, what’s happening is we’re getting back online from a system that was completely trashed by Trump,” says Austin-based immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch. “We don’t have a ‘surge’ on the border, what we have is a legal system that is getting online after it got completely blocked.”

    Lincoln-Goldfinch tells Truthout she’s currently handling a case of a 14-year-old boy who has been held in CBP custody for days longer than the legally mandated 72-hour limit, even though his father is able to receive him. The boy has yet to be transferred to HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is tasked with providing care for unaccompanied children entering the U.S. Lincoln-Goldfinch says CBP can’t tell her or the boy’s father where he is.

    It’s just one case that reveals the administration’s broader struggle to transfer children from an agency staffed with Border Patrol officers, to an agency staffed with social workers whose job is to care for children.

    A recent Senate delegation to the border seems to confirm what Lincoln-Goldfinch is seeing, as members of the delegation reportedly witnessed overcrowded CBP camps during a recent trip to the border, while reporting that an HHS facility that could shelter up to 500 children housed just 78 kids at the time of their visit.

    The pandemic, however, complicates the picture when it comes to HHS’s shelter capacity, drastically reducing it due to the need for COVID-19 physical distancing guidelines and mandates. Still, the HHS facility Senate delegation members visited recently was far from housing even half its capacity.

    “I think they’re just sort of hot potato-ing the problem by saying, ‘Well we’ll move the kids from this tent in Donna, to this random convention center in Dallas while we figure out what to do with them.’ It’s very much a short-term solution,” says Manoj Govindaiah, director of policy and government affairs at the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES).

    Migrant justice activists, however, also point out that HHS youth shelters are increasingly mirroring detention centers. The Office of Refugee Resettlement contracts all migrant youth detention facilities and requires operators to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP.

    Nonetheless, advocates say the administration needs to speed up the transfers of kids from CBP into HHS custody. Additionally, they say, it’s imperative that the Biden administration either tweak the legal definition of “unaccompanied” to include some extended family members, or co-locate HHS staffers at CBP sites to allow kids to be released with extended family members.

    “What’s disturbing to me about what the Biden administration is doing, is that they’re treating family groups — where there may not be a biological parent in the group, but let’s say, it’s an aunt and a niece — they are taking those kids in as ‘unaccompanied’ minors,” Lincoln-Goldfinch tells Truthout. “That is something that needs to shift quickly under Biden.”

    This is why it’s so critical that HHS and CBP increasingly adopt a co-location model that would reduce time children’s time in custody because HHS staffers, not CBP officers, can make more immediate determinations about who is an appropriate caregiver or sponsor to release children with or to, says Leah Chavla, a senior policy adviser at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

    U.S. Border Patrol overflow facility in Donna, Texas.
    U.S. Border Patrol overflow facility in Donna, Texas.

    Biden said Thursday that his administration is working expand facilities to accommodate unaccompanied minors, telling reporters, “We’re providing for the space, again, to be able to get these kids out of the Border Patrol facilities,” and pointing to 5,000 new beds at Fort Bliss in west Texas.

    In more than 80 percent of cases, CBP says, kids already have a relative in the U.S., and 40 percent already have a parent or legal guardian here. But while there is a complex “reality” to the need to process these children safely into home environments, Lincoln-Goldfinch says, “The Biden administration needs to be held accountable that they are doing this processing as quickly as possible and in the meantime are housing these kids, not detaining these kids, in a humane and comfortable environments.”

    Biden Doubles Down on Title 42

    Advocates and attorneys also argue the Biden administration needs completely scrap its remaining use of Title 42 of the public health code, which allows officials to use the pandemic as a reason to refuse asylum seekers entry. The American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits seeking to halt the Trump administration’s practice of using the code as a pretext to expel migrants.

    As the case unfolds, Biden has partially lifted Title 42 as it applies to unaccompanied minors, but continues to invoke the code to expel thousands of Central American migrant families to Mexico as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviews health conditions on the border. Mexico, however, isn’t always willing or able to receive them.

    RAICES’s Govindaiah says the administration’s continued use of Title 42 is contributing to the uptick in border crossings. “I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that a family attempts to enter and is expelled under Title 42, and then the desperate parents are sending the kid by him or herself and the kid is able to make it,” he says.

    But the administration appears to be doubling down on its use of the public health code. President Biden told reporters Thursday that he’s negotiating with Mexican officials in hopes of getting the country to accept all migrant families expelled from the U.S. under Title 42.

    Biden is also warning would-be migrants not to come the border while officials devise alternative means for migrants to apply for legal entry that don’t require them to show up in person.

    The administration is hardening its position as Republicans pushing even harsher immigration policies exploit the situation. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz traveled to the border this week with more than a dozen other GOP senators. The delegation comes after Cruz sent Biden a letter Monday criticizing the administration for not allowing reporters to join the trip.

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and 12 other Republicans likewise toured a processing center in El Paso, Texas, this month, calling the situation a “humanitarian crisis” and urging Biden to visit the border.

    Additionally, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also recently held a press conference across the street from the Dallas convention center that FEMA is now converting into a temporary shelter for migrant children, asking the federal government to let the Texas Department of Public Safety interview children there to investigate human trafficking. He characterized Biden’s moves as opening “the floodgates to any child who wants to come across the border,” making them more vulnerable to traffickers.

    “It’s just absolutely ridiculous, that position,” Govindaiah says of Abbott’s press conference. “This is coming from a time when we had a policy when we were turning everybody away, no matter how young, no matter who they were with. We were turning everybody away to Mexico where they were absolutely susceptible to traffickers and organized crime and gangs, and where was Abbott then? He wasn’t concerned about that. Now, he’s feigning concern about it…. All of this is just 100 percent political; it pays no attention to the needs of the kids who are really the collateral damage in this scenario.”

    The Root Causes of Migration

    Contrary to right-wing media narratives, immigration experts say migration waves like the one we’re experiencing now really aren’t about whether or not migrants perceive an administration to be more lenient at the border, and are more about the factors driving migrants out of the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in the first place.

    The pandemic has exacerbated such “push factors.” Virtual school is not a viable option for many kids in the Northern Triangle, and closures of businesses and subsequent job losses mean many families can no longer provide for their children. Climate change is also driving migration after Hurricanes Iota and Eta tore through Honduras, worsening living conditions there and causing more children and families to flee.

    “It’s not like people are closely paying attention to every nuance of U.S. policies — it’s really the push factors,” says the Women’s Refugee Commission’s Chavla.

    The biggest thing the administration can do to focus on the root causes, she says, is invest in Central America. The Biden administration has promised to invest $4 billion in the Northern Triangle countries and is already taking a small step in this direction: Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, and Ricardo Zuniga, the State Department’s special envoy to the Northern Triangle, are being dispatched to Guatemala, where they will talk to officials there about how to “expand economic opportunities” in the region.

    Overall, advocates say the Biden team’s early moves on immigration are giving them mixed signals. RAICES’s Govindaiah, for instance, partially praised the Biden administration for promising to shorten migrants’ stays at family jails (which it has rebranded as “reception centers”), but warned that if the administration doesn’t permanently close family jails like the Karnes County Family Residential Center, longer-term family detention could eventually return as political winds shift.

    “To me, it very much seems like window dressing to placate those of us who have been pushing for an end to family detention forever,” Govindaiah tells Truthout. “Even if a kid is going to be at Karnes for three days instead of three weeks, that doesn’t change the physical structure of Karnes. It’s still a prison. It’s cinder block and heavy, clanging, metal doors. It is still causing harm to the kid who may be there for less time.”

    Still, Govindaiah says he’s honestly surprised by the administration’s ramping down of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, something he didn’t quite expect, least of all so soon. However, he says, advocates must push the administration to adopt progressive policies toward all immigrants — not just those who may look more sympathetic on paper.

    “It very much seems like [Biden] may be taking pretty progressive positions on things like asylum seekers, legalization, refugees and children, and abuse survivors,” Govindaiah says. “That’s wonderful. But the other spectrum is [immigrants who] have criminal histories, those that have arrests, those that get ensnared in some law enforcement thing, that he may not be moving on but are equally important.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The Desperate Need for an Immigration Overhaul

    Biden could ease the suffering inflicted by his predecessors on migrants to the United States. But his administration is unlikely to resolve the structural injustices at the root of the immigration enforcement system.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • The Advocates Welcomes First Steps, Calls for Sustained Commitment to Human Rights

    As the United States transitions to a new administration, The Advocates for Human Rights looks forward to a renewed commitment to human rights in our domestic and foreign policy. Human rights standards provide a foundation to ensure that policy making is just, fair, and respects human dignity. 

    Topping the list, we welcome the end of the Muslim Ban, which four years ago served as the flagship for a xenophobic administrative agenda. We welcome the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to pursue an immigration policy that takes steps to reverse the harmful and illegal actions of the past four years and to chart a new course so that people can move with dignity. The Advocates looks forward to the Administration’s commitment to provide a path to regularize status and ensure dignity for those within our communities, restore our leadership on international human rights protections for those fleeing harm, and modernize our immigration system to recognize that harsh policies serve only to harm our nation and violate human rights.

    The Advocates additionally welcomes the Biden-Harris Administration’s stated priority to improve racial equity and justice through legal reforms that address systemic injustices in our legal system. International human rights law provides important guidelines for policing and use of force that should form the basis of these reforms, along with prohibitions against all forms discrimination in policy and practice.

    The Administration has promised to re-join the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization. Restoring American involvement and leadership in international organizations and mechanisms is an important first step in effectively addressing the many challenges facing the world community.

    We also welcome the new Administration’s promises to protect all persons, regardless of gender or gender identity, beginning with plans to repeal transgender military ban enacted by President Trump, restore Obama-era guidance for transgender students in schools, and push to pass the “Equality Act,” a bill to add more protections for LGBT Americans. We also anticipate a renewed focus on ending violence against women, including the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the expansion of its essential protections.

    Through our work, we have seen the negative impact of COVID-19 on victims of domestic violence and immigrants attempting to access legal protections in our immigration courts. Economic harms from the pandemic have increased evictions and foreclosures, increasing vulnerabilities to human trafficking and exploitation. We call on the new Administration to take a wholistic approach to responding to the health needs and economic harms caused by COVID-19.

    The Advocates knows that environmental concerns have impacts on human rights—often, driving migration, increasing conflict leading to abuses, and exacerbating existing inequalities and injustices. We welcome the new Administration’s day-one efforts to address climate change and the environment.

    The first priorities of the new Administration must be met with sustained commitment to respect for human rights, including racial equality, gender equality, migration with dignity, and advancement of protections for all people as we confront challenges facing the world. 

    This post was originally published on The Advocates Post.

  • Asylum Seeker Encourages Pro Bono Attorneys, “We Can Do It.”

    Mrs. A and her husband with Professor Steve Meili and other members of the U of M legal team in November 2019

    “We are not afraid anymore.” states Mrs. A, a client at The Advocates for Human Rights, who along with her husband and two children, recently received an asylum grant after four long years of uncertainty. 

    When Mrs. A contacted The Advocates, she and her family had been through a great deal. Mrs. A, her husband, and their two children lived in a neighborhood in Southern Mexico with a heavy cartel presence. Without sufficient finances to pay illegally demanded “rent”, the family faced life-threatening danger. Cartel members did not hesitate to show up in Mrs. A’s neighborhood, guns in hand. Open fire ensued, wounding Mrs. A in her side and causing her husband and children to have severe injuries. Afraid and desperate, Mrs. A ventured with her family to a place of safety at the home of her relatives in Minnesota. She knew the road to safety would be long and arduous, but the first step was leaving Mexico, a place where she no longer felt safe to raise her children. Over the course of the next four years, the family would have to persevere and hold on to a distant beacon of hope. Volunteer attorneys in collaboration with The Advocates for Human Rights strove to be this beacon. 

    In the US, limitations on asylum grants continue to increase, making an asylum win no small feat. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, only 3.4% of Mexican asylum seekers were granted this humanitarian protection in 2019[1].  In recent years, the federal government has dramatically increased restrictions on access to asylum protection for victims of cartel and gang violence. In 2019, the Trump administration implemented a policy that forces asylum seekers from Central America to return to Mexico for an indefinite amount of time while their claims are processed[2]. In addition to compiling evidence, volunteer attorneys must make sure clients can remain in the country during the processing of their case. Mrs. A commented how grateful she felt to be away from “the place that has caused [them] so much harm.”

    The Advocates have a deep network of volunteers willing to work pro bono on asylum cases, including immigration clinics at all three Minnesota law schools.  Professor Steve Meili, faculty director of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at University of Minnesota’s Binger Center for New Americans, took on Mrs. A’s case and along with his clinical students, they created a robust legal team.   

    Winning an asylum case is a collaborative effort.  Staff at The Advocates for Human Rights’ Refugee and Immigrant Program provided support to the UofM legal team, providing strategy suggestions and helping to keep the team apprised of the frequent changes in asylum law over the course of the case. Because asylum cases have become more difficult to win in the United States, it is essential that refugees feel this network of legal support within their community. Mrs. A stated that her lawyers were “kind, attentive, efficient, and all meanings of the word”. After four long years since Mrs. A and her family’s arrival to the United States, the immigration judge granted asylum to her and her family.  “Now I can see my kids run and play and know that I don’t have to worry.” 

    What does it mean to be a lawyer for an asylum seeker? As Mrs. A stated, her lawyers became her family. She states “I feel like they mix with us and live through us and are emotionally invested in the cases. I saw the lawyers as my lawyers, but also as my family. They were there for me in crisis and when I lost hope. They were always with me when I was desperate or when it was really hard for me to talk about my case and they were there to console me and say, ‘Okay you can take a break.’ Now that I am not working with them anymore, I feel like I am losing a part of me.” At The Advocates for Human Rights, volunteer attorneys work tirelessly to win cases like Mrs. A’s and in doing so incorporate themselves into the lives of clients. 

    Thank you to all our volunteer attorneys for the work you do to make refugees feel safe and free in this country. The commitment of pro bono attorneys with The Advocates makes a lasting and significant impact on the lives of people like Mrs. A, as she notes “Don’t give up. Help your lawyers as much as you can to build a strong case. Collect all the evidence you can from your country. And we can do it.”

    [1] U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (September 2020). Refugees and Asylees: 2019. Annual Flow Report. Ryan Baugh.

    [2] City News Service (December 2019) Only 0.1% Of Asylum Seekers Granted Asylum Under Trump’s Remain In Mexico Policy KPBS.org.

    By Nechelle Dias, University of Connecticut student and Communications Intern at The Advocates for Human Rights

    Nechelle Dias, UConn student and intern at The Advocates for Human Rights

    The Advocates for Human Rights is a nonprofit organization dedicated to implementing international human rights standards to promote civil society and reinforce the rule of law. The Advocates represents more than 1000 asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, and immigrants in detention through a network of hundreds of pro bono legal professionals.

    Curious about volunteering? Please reach out. The Advocates for Human Rights has an opportunity for you.

    Eager to see change? Give to our mission, our vision, our work. Your gift matters.

    This post was originally published on The Advocates Post.

  • Let’s Rise Up Against the Trump Administration’s Attack on Asylum

    This is a slap in the face. Today, on international Human Rights Day, the Trump Administration finalized the biggest rollback of asylum in recent history.

    You probably remember us talking about this back in July, when the regulation was proposed. You may have even submitted your own comment in opposition.

    We were hoping the nearly 87,000 comments would slow this thing down and that the Administration wouldn’t be able to finalize it before leaving office. Unfortunately, the rule is set for publication tomorrow, and will go into effect in January.

    We can counteract this rule–and so many of the other Administration’s cruel and inhumane policies–if Congress passes the Refugee Protection Act.

    This Human Rights Day, let’s rise up against this blatant rollback of human rights. Write to your Congressperson here:

     

    The post Let’s Rise Up Against the Trump Administration’s Attack on Asylum appeared first on Human Rights Initiative.

    This post was originally published on Blog – Human Rights Initiative.

  • United, We’re Not

    Where does America go from here? 

    We talk with an asylum-seeking family, a Georgia woman on abortion access, and West Virginians on the impact of Black Lives Matter.


    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Detained and Exposed

    Social distancing, hand-washing and self-isolation are supposed to keep us safe from the coronavirus. But if you’re locked up in an immigrant detention center, it’s impossible to follow those rules. 


    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Trans National Migration

    We meet an immigration judge who rejected nearly every asylum case that came before her, then follow a transgender woman as she tries to claim asylum. Finally, we go to Turkey, where young Afghan women are trying to leave their past behind.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Five Years on Nauru

    Children refusing to eat, talk, or even drink water. A surreal mental illness sweeps across families stuck in an Australian immigrant detention camp on a tiny island nation in the South Pacific.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • When They Took My Son (rebroadcast)

    We examine the stories of two families separated in 2018 at the U.S.-Mexico border and how what happened to them matches up with what the government said was supposed to happen.

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    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • When They Took My Son

    A 6-year-old child sleeps in a vacant office building, surrounded by strangers. An infant is taken from his breastfeeding mother. We examine the stories of two families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border and how what happened to them matches up with what the government said was supposed to happen.

    From Reveal’s Aura Bogado, and Neena Satija (who also works with our partners at The Texas Tribune), Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, along with Casey Miner.

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    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Ripped Apart: Families Separated at the Border

    President Donald Trump said he was ending family separation at the border this week. But we’ve stayed on the story, investigating the issues that remain: children being drugged at migrant shelters, asylum-seekers being denied at ports of entry and the problems with Trump’s new detention plan.

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    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Reveal Answers Your Questions About Immigration

    Last fall, we threw out a simple question after a show about U.S. immigration policies: What do you wish you knew about immigration?

    Across the country, listeners responded with hundreds of text messages – from small towns in Iowa, Colorado and Massachusetts to big cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago.

    We chose four questions and took our team of reporters and producers to task to answer them.

    To figure out the answers, we go deep into immigration court, help one listener uncover her grandfather’s secret past about entering the country and break down the path to legal citizenship. On the way, we meet scam artists, attorneys, asylum seekers and do-gooders learning immigration law for kicks.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.