ICE to Halt Detention of Asylum Seekers

Its about time, but according to an AP article, ICE plans on halting the detention of asylum seekers in the US as of January 4, if they meet certain criteria [They must establish their identities, they cannot be dangerous or a flight risk, and they must have a credible fear of persecution or torture].

The Obama administration it will stop detaining asylum seekers who have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.

To be released into the U.S., the asylum seekers will have to establish the credible fear and their identities and show they are not dangerous or a flight risk, said John Morton, Department of Human Services assistant secretary overseeing ICE.

Foreigners who arrive at a port of entry and are found to have a credible fear will automatically be considered for release into the U.S., Morton said.

Asylum seekers still will spend time in detention while they undergo interviews and their information is checked, but the administration hopes to reduce the length of their stay with a policy change, ICE said.

Their stay in the U.S. will be considered temporary until a final decision is made on their asylum claim.

Currently, foreigners who come to the U.S. without valid documents can be immediately removed from the country, without a hearing. Also, requests for release must be made in writing, ICE said.

Judge Posner Ruling on PSG based on Gang Membership

See Judge Posner's latest asylum decision for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, see Download TG13OC9G[1]. The case involves a particular social group claim by a Salvadoran based on gang membership.

(HT: ImmigrationProf)

The UK needs a Gender Sensitive Asylum System

We need a Gender Sensitive Asylum System:

Last week the government launched its strategy to end violence against women and girls. This rightly refers to the progress made by the police, Crown Prosecution Service and courts in dealing with violence against women and girls. For example, if you report a rape nowadays you can ask for a female police officer to be present at your interview and you get supported by a specially trained officer throughout the police investigation and at any subsequent trial. Contrast this treatment with that in the asylum system. Rani, who escaped Sri Lanka after her husband was murdered and she was raped by soldiers, told me that at her asylum interview:

I was happy with a lady interviewer but not a male translator ... Because he was a man I felt ashamed. If it was a woman I would have said more.

A gender-sensitive system should prevent this taking place. This week we at Asylum Aid have launched Every Single Woman, a new campaign under the Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum, which highlights that the criminal justice system has at least 26 laws or policies on working with women victims of crime while the UK Border Agency has just two.

Cecilia had the misfortune to spend time in both prison and an asylum detention centre. When I asked her the difference between them, her answer shocked me:

I'd prefer, rather than going in a detention centre ... to be in prison for the rest of my life.

She talked about male staff at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, appearing unannounced, entering her room and searching through her possessions, including her underwear. Having herself experienced rape in Cameroon, this was particularly frightening. In prison, a search was always undertaken by a female prison officer and always after she had been warned that this would take place. In fact, UK prison policy is that there should be at least 60% female staff in a women's prison because "women who have been abused by men may feel safer in a predominantly female environment". No such policy exists in detention centres for women. At Tinsley House, near Gatwick Airport, there is room for 116 men and five women. With such a disproportionate number of males to females, women can feel intimidated, scared and isolated. Quite often a woman can be the only female detainee surrounded by 116 men. Women would never be placed in a men's prison in this way.

If a young woman is homeless and pregnant in the UK she is eligible for housing benefit, income support and one-off maternity grants worth £690. But not if she is a refused asylum seeker. Rahel is from Ethiopia and found herself without any support after her asylum claim was refused. For the first three months of her pregnancy she slept at Victoria Station in a sleeping bag given to her by the Red Cross. Only when she became so ill that she had to be hospitalised was she offered basic accommodation and vouchers to pay for food.

Canada's Asylum Rulings

Two interesting cases have popped up in Canada related to granting asylum. Both are controversial.

In the first, Canada granted asylum to Brandon Huntley on the basis that black criminals are targeting white South Africans with impunity because of the state’s inability, or unwillingness, to protect them. Huntley first came to Canada on a six-month work permit in 2004 to work as a carnival attendant. He returned home to South Africa and came back to work in Canada in 2005 for a year and stayed illegally for an additional year until he made a refugee claim in April 2008.

Via ImmigrationProf Blog:

The consensus, quite rightly, is that Huntley, an unemployed irrigation system salesman, might have taken Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board for a ride, in the process embarrassing South Africa in the eyes of the world — and possibly even undermining the position of genuine refugees everywhere.

Black and white citizens joined in the chorus of protests against the decision, pointing out that crime affects all of us. South African officials have also taken up the matter with their Canadian counterparts, suggesting the board should, at the very least, have sought our government’s opinion before ruling.

The Canadian government has now applied for leave to appeal the board’s ruling in the federal court. Should the court overturn the ruling, Huntley, who is still a South African citizen, faces the prospect of being deported. Click here for the rest of the piece.

The second is the case of a lesbian who deserted the U.S. army argued before the Federal Court in Ottawa that she should be allowed to remain in Canada as a refugee. CBC News reports:

Pte. Bethany Smith, also known as Skyler James, is seeking a judicial review of a decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board to reject a refugee claim. Smith said she feared for her life due to the treatment she received in the army as a result of her sexual orientation.

"I had to endure not only verbal and physical harassment, but death threats and harassment letters on my door every day," Smith told reporters Tuesday outside the court. Following the hearing, she said she was staying positive and hoping for the best.

Smith, who now lives in Ottawa, said she was treated as "less than human" by other soldiers at the base in Fort Campbell, Ky., after they saw her holding hands with another woman at a local mall and found out she was a lesbian. One soldier who worked with her on the base's fleet of vehicles would pick her up, shake her and throw her to the ground on a daily basis, she told CBC News.

Fearing for her life, she asked her first sergeant for a discharge, which is usually granted automatically to soldiers who admit to homosexuality.

"He told me straight up, 'We'll figure out the paperwork when we get back from deployment," she recalled. At the time, Smith was scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan.

Her lawyer, Jamie Liew, suggested the military went against its own policies because it needed more soldiers for its overseas deployments.

After being denied a discharge, Smith, who was 19 years old at the time, drove to the border at Cornwall, Ont., with another soldier. The War Resister Support Campaign, a group that has helped other U.S. deserters, helped her settle in Ottawa.

If Smith returns to the U.S., Liew believes that in addition to threats to her life, Smith would face military charges of desertion, absence without leave and indecency.

If the Federal Court rules in Smith's favour, she will be able to make her case again before a different IRB member, said Liew. She said the previous refugee board decision erred by not dealing with whether Smith would be persecuted if she returns to the U.S.

UNHCR Opens Office in Calais

Tightening of security between Dover and Calais has caused a "jungle like atmosphere in Calais." So much so that UNHCR has opened an office there. The Telegraph reports:

Security has been tightened at the port and far fewer illegal migrants get through to Britain now, according to the UK's Border Control Agency. It told The Sunday Telegraph that effective control of Calais port and the routes across the Channel was a success story.

But the fact that it is harder to reach Britain merely means that the migrants - almost all of them men and boys - hang around in Calais for even longer, months instead of weeks, as they attempt to stow away on lorries or in cars.

Meanwhile they [asylum seekers] live in conditions which are so appalling that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees opened an office in the town [Calais], only the second in Europe for an agency which is more typically found in troublespots like Congo or Pakistan.

UN officials feel they must do something for the inhabitants of the stinking "jungles" where desperate men and boys fight each other with knives and suffer diseases like scabies and TB, as the filth, frustration and violence take their toll.

The UNHCR works with hard-pressed charities that try to help the migrants and encourages them to apply for asylum in France. But only 120 enquiries have been made in the past month.

Marie-Ange Lascure, UNHCR's spokeswoman, said migrants were arriving in bigger numbers than a few years ago. "They want to go to England because the people smugglers tell them it is a beautiful place, where they can easily earn money to send home to their families," she said.

French police frequently raid the camps, and sometimes destroy them. Sixteen vanloads of CRS riot police arrived on Thursday as bulldozers levelled a derelict warehouse which 30 Sudanese from the war-torn province of Darfur had been using as a temporary home.

Many of the Afghans, who are now the majority of migrants at Calais, said they had fled the Taliban. Samim Siddique, 24, from Khost, rolled up his trouser leg to show a bayonet scar where he had been tortured by terrorists who wanted him to carry a bomb into the university where he was studying.

The Ninth Circuit's Latest on FGM

Via ImmigrationProfBlog:

The Ninth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge McKeown (joined by Judges Fletcher and Smith), ruled today that "[t]he BIA’s(Board of Immigration Appeals) determination concerning the persecution Annisa suffered when she was forced to undergo female genital mutilation and the dismissal of that procedure as a lesser form of circumcision was erroneous. Female genital mutilation `constitutes persecution sufficient to support an asylum claim.' Abebe v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 1037, 1039 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). The BIA’s conclusion to the contrary is at odds with Ninth Circuit law and represents a misunderstanding of the BIA’s own precedent. The BIA also erred in failing to consider whether the threat that Anakarina would be forced to undergo female genital mutilation in the future could be a ground for relief in this matter. Substantial evidence supports the rejection of Benyamin’s other proffered basis for relief. We grant the petition for review and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

Benyamin v. Holder, Aug. 24, 2009. Download 05-71488[1]

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco criticized immigration officials who, in ordering the family deported, decided that the girl had suffered no serious harm when her genitals were mutilated as a newborn.

Any form of female genital mutilation is "horrifically brutal" and amounts to persecution under established precedents in federal courts and the Justice Department's immigration courts, the court said.

The 3-0 ruling gives Bob Benito Benyamin, his wife, Anabella Rodriguez, and their three daughters another chance to challenge deportation to Indonesia, where the oldest daughter underwent forced circumcision at 5 days old in 1992 at the orders of a grandmother. The family said she has felt pain from the procedure ever since.

Federal courts have granted asylum to women who fled their countries after being genitally mutilated or threatened with mutilation. In this case, the parents argued that one of their younger daughters would face ritual mutilation if deported to Indonesia, and that sparing her from deportation would be meaningless if the rest of her family was deported.

In denying asylum, immigration judges cited a State Department report that said female genital mutilation as practiced in Indonesia "involves minimal short-term pain, suffering and complications."

Contrasting the procedure to a court's description of mutilation in Ethiopia, where the genitals are cut with knives and recovery takes 40 days, immigration courts said the Indonesian girl had not been persecuted and that neither she nor her family was entitled to asylum.

But the appeals court said its rulings and a World Health Organization report have found that even in its least drastic form, the genital mutilation of women and girls causes physical and psychological harm and the risk of serious complications.

An immigration review board's "attempt to parse the distinction between differing forms of female genital mutilation is ... a threat to the rights of women in a civilized society," Judge Margaret McKeown said in the court ruling.

The court returned the case to the immigration board to decide whether the younger daughter faced a likelihood of genital mutilation in Indonesia. If so, the board must decide whether the entire family is eligible for asylum or whether the parents and their daughters might instead be sent to Venezuela, the mother's native country. The younger daughter was born there.

Posner on 'Particular Social Group'

Via ImmigrationProf Blog:

For an excellent opinion by Judge Richard Posner (joined by Judges Ripple and Wood), frequent critic of the rulings of the Board of Immigration Appeals, on the definition of "particular social group" for purposes of asylum, see Download 08-3197 opn The case involves the question whether defectors of the Mungiki in Kenya are members of a particular social group. The court disagrees with the reasoning of the BIA and vacates the ruling and remands the case to the Board.

New Policy Grants Asylum to Battered Women

Defining a 'particular social group' with regards to refugee determination has been a major question in the jurisprudence surrounding asylum law. Now The Obama administration announced that foreign women who are victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse can receive asylum in the United States. The action reverses a Bush administration position. The New York Times reports:

In addition to meeting other strict conditions for asylum, abused women will need to show that they are treated by their abuser as subordinates and little better than property, according to an immigration court filing by the administration, and that domestic abuse is widely tolerated in their country. They must show that they could not find protection from institutions at home or by moving to another place within their own country.

The administration laid out its position in an immigration appeals court filing in the case of a woman from Mexico who requested asylum, saying she feared she would be murdered by her common-law husband there. According to court documents filed in San Francisco, the man repeatedly raped her at gunpoint, held her captive, stole from her and at one point tried to burn her alive when he learned she was pregnant.

he Obama administration’s position caps a legal odyssey for foreign women seeking protection in the United States from domestic abuse that began in 1996 when a Guatemalan woman named Rody Alvarado was granted asylum by an immigration court, based on her account of repeated beatings by her husband. Three years later, an immigration appeals court overturned Ms. Alvarado’s asylum, saying she was not part of any persecuted group under American law.

Any applicant for asylum or refugee status in the United States must demonstrate a “well-founded fear of persecution” because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or “membership in a particular social group.” The extended legal argument has been whether abused women could be part of any social group that would be eligible under those terms. Last year, 22,930 people won asylum in this country fleeing all types of persecution; the number has been decreasing in recent years.

This is a great win, but unfortunately the new policy does not involve women fleeing genital mutilation.

See Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog for the roundup.

Israel and Refugees

Israel has in the past berated other countries for historically failing to help Jewish refugees . It is now cracking down on asylum seekers and refugees seeking protection within their borders. The Guardian reports:

Israel – the "state of the refugees" whose culture has been shaped, for better and worse, by migration – is now turning on the migrants and refugees who seek a safe haven within its borders.

The Knesset decided to resume work on a bill, tellingly titled the Infiltrators Law (pdf), which aims to reorganise Israel's confused and haphazard dealings with the refugees from Darfur, South Sudan, Congo and Eritrea who manage to reach its Egyptian border. It brands all those who cross this border other than through designated terminals as "infiltrators", and instructs soldiers who find them to quickly determine if they can be handed back immediately to the Egyptian troops.

In the case of asylum seekers (who cannot be summarily returned), the bill proceeds to set forth their punishments, since "we believe that anyone crossing illegally into a country does so with ill intent". Anyone who is a citizen of an enemy state or territory (such as Sudan and Gaza) can be sentenced to seven years in prison; anyone carrying a weapon, which "includes knives" (ever tried walking across 120 miles of desert without a knife?), or anyone accompanying a person carrying a weapon (such as a family guided by an armed smuggler), can get up to 20 years. The bill passed its first reading in March last year and the latest decision means it can pass the rest of Israel's legislative process within weeks.

Bur the draft law goes further. The 17,000 asylum seekers who did manage to enter Israel in the last nine years are supported by a network of selfless Israelis. From the Workers Hotline that tries to provide them with jobs, through Assaf, which provides them with legal aid and caters to their basic needs, all the way to inspired individuals who assist the refugees on the ground, there is work here reminiscent of the slave-trade era's Underground Railroad. And there is a corresponding memento in clause five of the bill:

He who assists one who transgresses against this law, by easing the act of infiltration or by easing the infiltrator's illegal stay in the state, shall be punished exactly as the perpetrator of the actual offence.

Neither the draft nor its accompanying notes elaborate as to what "assistance" means. The vague and generic phrasing of this clause makes it possible to prosecute the NGOs and volunteers that assist refugees, employers who engage them and volunteer physicians who treat them. In fact, anyone offering a parched refugee a drink of water or a ride can get up to 20 years.

The draft also expands the authority of police, granting new arrest powers to regular soldiers "if they have reasonable grounds to suspect a person had recently infiltrated Israel", and granting soldiers and police the powers "to enter at any reasonable time to any locality, excepting living quarters, if they suspect a person defined as infiltrator is to be found within said locality, and carry out inspections".

In other words, any policeman or soldier could enter, without a warrant, almost any place, if they believed that an "infiltrator" is to be found there. The exclusion of living quarters still leaves schools, clinics, hospitals, and, importantly, NGO offices, vulnerable to such searches, and another clause notes the searchers may use "reasonable force against persons or property" if resisted.

The latest legislative feat of Israel, which never misses an opportunity to remind western countries of how they failed to take in Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, is repugnant. But this bill is only one of a series of measures Israel is taking against its non-Jewish residents.

In August, Israel plans to force a mass exodus of most of the 250,000 migrant workers, and to replace them with fresh labour. Israel is operating by the twin codes of pragmatic xenophobia and practical double standards. Foreigners are allowed to work at the lowest end of the market, but not to strike roots, raise families and integrate; the Jewish refugees of 70 years ago are a great stick to beat the west with, but heaven forbid we show compassion to present-day, non-Jewish refugees, lest our precious demographic balance is disrupted.

Study shows 'reality gap' for Britons who think they know about immigration

A study by the Red Cross found that attitudes to asylum-seekers in Britain are being skewed by gross over-estimation of the numbers of refugees reaching the United Kingdom and prejudice towards immigrants among young people. The Independent reports:

Nearly a quarter of people believe there are more than 100,000 asylum applications every year – about four times the annual figure of 25,670, and just 5 per cent of Britons know to within 10,000 how many refugees come to the UK every year, according to a survey carried out for the charity.

Of particular concern was the negative image of asylum-seekers among the 18-24 age group, where nearly two-thirds chose the word "uneducated" and 33 per cent used "hostile" when asked to describe refugees.

A spokesman for the Red Cross said: "There is a clear gap between what people think is the level of asylum-seekers entering the UK and the reality. They are getting figures from the media and basing their opinions on perceptions that are not true. The number of refugees coming to the UK is far lower than most people think. It is interesting to note that when people are asked to describe refugees and base their opinions on people they know or have met then you find many more positive associations."

The charity said its survey of 1,000 people, conducted by ICM, had uncovered a succession of misconceptions about asylum-seeker numbers, including a belief that Britain had a disproportionate share of the world's refugees. 85 per cent do not know how many asylum-seekers are hosted by the UK.

On average, people think that the UK is home to 24 per cent of all asylum-seekers – eight times the actual figure of 3 per cent. Of those surveyed, just 3 per cent could give the correct percentage while 85 per cent said they simply did not know.

Perceptions of the skills offered by asylum-seekers are also out of step with reality. Seven per cent thought refugees were mostly jobless while 27 per cent they were unskilled, blue-collar workers from the farming and manufacturing sectors in their countries of origins. Only 10 per cent of asylum-seekers were judged to have been in higher education when in fact about a third of refugees have university degrees or professional qualifications.

U.S. allies losing asylum bids over definition of 'terrorist'

This is why our asylum courts need reform:

Forced to flee his homeland because he supported America's ideals, Tsegu Bahta thought he'd be embraced by the country he emulated and respected.

Instead, the U.S. has branded him a terrorist.

The former rebel commander and top official in Eritrea once provided the U.S. with intelligence about Osama bin Laden and advocated the adoption of an American-style constitution for his fledgling African nation. He now works as a Washington parking lot attendant, biding his time until the U.S. government decides whether to deport him.

Bahta is among at least 6,000 immigrants who've tried to find refuge in the U.S. only to be told that they don't qualify because the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 laws label members of armed groups terrorists, even if they supported pro-democracy efforts and opposed despots and dictators. Others who gave money to terrorists under threat of death are considered terrorist sympathizers.

As a result, a wide range of immigrants, from Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government despite death threats to child soldiers who fled their African countries so they'd no longer be forced to kill, are trapped in legal limbo.

Their cases help fuel a growing perception internationally that the U.S., which still accepts the most refugees in the world, has become much less welcoming — even to those who champion democratic ideals.

Asylum Seekers have Better Luck with Female or Northern Judges

It appears that female judges or with a judge located in the North. The Chicago Sun- Times reports:

If you're a political refugee afraid to go back to your homeland, pray you get a woman judge or a Northerner. A male judge sitting in a Southern court is about twice as likely to reject your asylum plea, according to research from two Georgetown University professors.

"The fact that women are more sympathetic to asylum seekers -- that is certainly a factor, and maybe Southerners don't like foreigners as much," Federal Appellate Judge Richard Posner said with a chuckle. "Maybe people in big cities are more used to having large [less] indigenous populations. Maybe it's different in more homogenous areas of the United States."

Posner has been the most outspoken appellate judge criticizing the decisions of federal immigration judges and he sits on the appellate court most likely to grant asylum pleas -- the Chicago-based 7th Circuit. Posner spoke this past week at a seminar by the Georgetown professors -- Philip Schrag and Andrew Schoenholtz who are compiling the book about how U.S. Courts handle asylum cases.

Using data they obtained through Freedom of Information requests, Schrag and Schoenholtz charted the progress of asylum cases from the hearing officers who first rule on the cases, to the immigration judges who those rulings can be appealed to, to the Board of Immigration Affairs (BIA) in Virginia to the federal appellate courts that represent the last hope for the refugees.

At the immigration judge stage, they found judges in Atlanta granted only 12 percent of asylum requests, while judges in New York granted 52 percent and judges in San Francisco granted 54 percent. Even within those jurisdictions, the rulings were all over the map, they said. One New York judge granted asylum in six percent of the cases; another New York judge granted asylum in 91 percent of cases.

Asylum-seekers with no attorney won only 16 percent of the time. Those with an attorney won 46 percent of the time.

One statistic that caught the professors by surprise: the 78 female immigration judges granted asylum in 54 percent of cases; while the 169 male judges granted it in 37 percent of cases.

France to Shut Down Calais Camps

For several years the French city Calais has been the last mainland Europe stop before asylum seekers attempt to cross the English Channel to make it to Britain. Due to many failed attempts, the city has been a makeshift city for migrants. Now France has plans to 'shut down the Calais camp.' The BBC reports:

French authorities have said they plan to close a migrant squatter camp outside Calais by the end of this year. Immigration Minister Eric Besson said the camp, known as "the jungle", would be replaced by a temporary centre offering migrants food and shelter. There are estimated to be about 1,000 migrants in makeshift camps in Calais, most hoping to enter Britain. The camps sprang up after France closed the Sangatte Red Cross refugee centre in 2002. Since then, charities have provided donations of food and clothing to migrants. The French and British governments are currently discussing the creation of a new immigrant holding centre within the British-controlled zone of the Calais docks.

I wonder how much influence the movie 'Welcome' had on French authorities.

Mexican Drug Wars Force Mexicans to Claim Asylum in US

The UK Telegraph on Mexicans seeking asylum:

Mexican journalists, businessmen and elected officials have also placed asylum requests north of the border as violence engulfs their homeland. The American authorities must now decide how to deal with government functionaries who claim that their own state - a close ally of Washington - is unable to keep them alive.

The drug wars that have made Mexico as dangerous as Iraq, claiming more than 6,000 lives last year, will dominate the agenda this week when President Barack Obama visits his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, en route to the Summit of the Americans in Trinidad and Tobago.

Some 312 Mexicans lodged "credible fear" asylum requests upon arriving at the American frontier last year, up from 179 in 2007 and just 54 in 2003. Another 2,231 asked for asylum after entering the US, nearly double the number in 2006.

Although there is no dispute about the scale of the bloodshed south of the border, the new breed of asylum-seekers do not clearly fall into the internationally-recognised categories of those fleeing persecution because the state cannot or will not protect them from persecution on grounds of their race, religion, nationality, or political beliefs.

The new rash of asylum requests are highlighting the scale of the security crisis in America's immediate backyard. For Mr Obama, the horrific drug wars are a graphic reminder of the importance of narcotics policy in the Western hemisphere, and which has long a barometer of US relations with the region.

Another Reason why Same Sex Marraige and Unions should be a Federal Issue

Shirley Tan has been with her partner, Jay Mercado, for 23 years. The Pacifica women have twin 12-year-old sons and have been registered domestic partners since 1991. That means nothing to the federal government, which recognizes only a marriage between a man and a woman. Federal authorities ordered Tan, who is not a U.S. citizen, to be deported from San Francisco to her native Philippines. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

With the help of her congresswoman, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, Tan received a three-week stay of the deportation order, allowing her to remain with her family until April 22. In 1995, she applied for political asylum, saying she feared for her life in her home country."I was 14 when it happened, and I was shot in the head and beaten," she said. "It's a miracle that I'm alive." Any deportation action was stayed while the asylum request was being considered. But when the Board of Immigration Appeals turned down the request in 2002 and ordered Tan deported, no one - not even her previous attorney - told her. The respite ended Jan. 28, when immigration agents showed up at Tan's home in Pacifica to take her into custody.

Under the federal Defense of Marriage Act, domestic partnerships and even legal same-sex marriages, such as those last year in California and which still occur in Massachusetts, aren't recognized as valid in immigration cases.

A survey commissioned by Immigration Equality found that in 2000 there were about 37,000 same-sex couples in the country where one partner was a foreign national. About half of these couples had children under 18.

Since 2000, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has introduced bills to allow the "permanent partners" of U.S. citizens the same avenue to permanent resident status spouses now have. The bills have never made it out of committee, but that could change, said Ilan Kayatsky, a spokesman for Nadler.

So far, 93 members of the House and 17 senators have signed on as co-sponsors of either HR1024, the Uniting American Families Act of 2009, or its companion measure in the Senate, S424 by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Obama's Aunt to be Granted Asylum?

President Barack Obama's aunt will remain in the United States until at least next year as she awaits a chance to make her case before an immigration judge in her bid for asylum from her native Kenya. At a hearing in Boston, a judge set the case of Zeituni Onyango, for Feb. 4, 2010. Ms. Onyango, 56, first applied for asylum in 2002, but was rejected and ordered deported in 2004. She did not leave the country and continued to live in public housing in Boston. Her lawyer said Ms. Onyango first applied for asylum because of violence in Kenya but did not reveal what grounds she had cited in her renewed bid.

Wednesday's hearing at the U.S. Immigration Court in Boston was closed to the media at the request of Margaret Wong, Onyango's attorney. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security are defending an order to deport Onyango.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt says President Obama is staying out of the matter and that "the president believes that the case should run its ordinary course."

When the initial appearance was over, Onyango, wearing a red wig and dark glasses, was escorted through a side door of the courthouse to avoid news cameras staking out the main entrances.

Onyango lives in public housing in South Boston and volunteers as a health advocate for people in her housing complex. She reportedly attended inauguration events for her nephew in January accompanied by her lawyer.

Not Welcome in the U.S. or UK

This series of photos published by the BBC provides a snapshot of life of failed asylum-seekers in the UK. Many are homeless, many have experienced new traumas living outside the reach of the law in the country in which they hoped to find refuge.

In the UK, this photo exhibit is calling attention to the government's lack of support of this vulnerable population. It's worse in the U.S., where asylum-seekers in the U.S. are often given the choice between spending months, sometimes years, in prison awaiting resolution of their claims and being returned to face torture or death at the hands of their persecutors.

(HT: Dave Bennion)

Asylum for Mexicans- The Drug War

Amidst the increasing violence in Mexico, a growing number of Mexicans are seeking asylum in the United States.

In 2003, the USCIS reported 54 asylum cases from Mexican citizens. In 2008, that number reached 312. But asylum requests based on fear of violence aren't easy cases to make. Last year, the United States approved less than half of those cases.

While this is still a small number, according to international refugee law, sustained, widespread violence within a country is reasonable grounds for asylum. Is this happening in Mexico?

NPR on March 23: The violence has spread throughout the country

• "The drug war killed more than 6,000 people last year and has prompted some security analysts to warn that Mexico is in danger of becoming a failed state.
• Major gun battles, at times lasting for hours, have erupted from the Guatemalan border to the interior highlands to the Chihuahua desert.
• The Mexican cartels have come to dominate global cocaine trafficking. Mexico also has become the world's largest exporter of marijuana. Estimates of the revenue generated by the Mexican drug cartels range from $18 billion to $40 billion a year
• President Calderon has sent in the military to patrol the streets in several cities
  
• See the interactive map
  

NPR on March 24: The Cartels are recruiting young people

• The epicenter of violence in Mexico remains Ciudad Juarez, where nearly 2,000 people have been murdered in a mafia war in the past 14 months — many of them just boys. Some 80 percent of the victims are younger than 25.
• "Sicaritos are children who are assassins, 13 or 14 years old," says Soto. "[The cartels] give them a weapon to use.
• Mexican drug cartels recruit children under 18 for the same reasons that armed forces conscript boy soldiers in Sierra Leone and Somalia — their immaturity produces fearlessness. And for a young boy at the margin of society, cartel membership brings instant respect.

A great deal of the violence is our responsibility. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even said so.

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” Mrs. Clinton said, using unusually blunt language. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”

Thus, in addition to international refugee law, there is a moral obligation here as well: "if you help screw up someone’s country, you should let them leave that country and join yours." We are granting refugee status to Iraqis and Afghanis (albeit minimally) so we should not be turning down Mexicans who seek asylum. I suspect the numbers will only grow.

And, the U.S. has granted asylum to Mexicans in the past.

Senator Kerry Advocates for Asylum- Genesio Oliveira

Senator John Kerry has asked the Obama administration to grant asylum to a gay man who married an American citizen in Massachusetts and was later forced to return to Brazil: The New York Times reports:

The man, Genesio Oliveira, has been separated from his husband, Tim Coco, since August 2007, when he left the country after his request for asylum and an appeal were denied.

Mr. Oliveira asked for asylum in 2002, saying he was raped and attacked by a physician as a teenager in Brazil and feared persecution because of his sexuality.

In a letter sent Thursday to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., Mr. Kerry said that Immigration Judge Francis L. Cramer had found Mr. Oliveira’s testimony to be credible and his fear of living in Brazil genuine. However, the judge denied the asylum claim, saying he “was never physically harmed” by the rape, the letter said. Mr. Kerry called the ruling “outrageous.”

In Brazil, judges have granted foreign partners in same-sex relationships the right to residence and have authorized civil unions that bestow many benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. But many segments of society remain openly hostile to gay men and lesbians.

The Department of Justice said Mr. Holder would review the letter and respond to Mr. Kerry, but officials would not comment.

In an interview Friday, Mr. Kerry said: “Nobody’s asking to overturn or change the federal law. This is really a humanitarian situation that deserves an appropriate focus.”

Mr. Kerry has co-sponsored a bill that would allow gay men and lesbians from other countries to become legal residents based on their permanent relationships with American citizens.

Immigrants can apply for residency if they marry American citizens, but the federal government does not recognize same sex marraige under the Defense of Marriage Act, and Mr. Oliveira’s request to remain in the United States based on his relationship with Mr. Coco was denied last month.

This is why Civil Unions should be a Federal Issue.

Negusie v. Mukasey: Supreme Court Reverses Fifth Circuit

The Supreme Court issued an opinion on Negusie v. Mukasey (here for more):

“In this case the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) determined that the persecutor bar [to asylum] applies even if the alien’s assistance in persecution was coerced or otherwise the product of duress. In so ruling the BIA followed its earlier decisions that found Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U. S. 490 (1981), controlling. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in affirming the agency, relied on its precedent following the same reasoning. We hold that the BIA and the Court of Appeals misapplied Fedorenko. We reverse and remand for the agency to interpret the statute, free from the error, in the first instance.” Download 07-499.pd

The issue presented by the case is whether the provision of the Immigration and Naturalization Act that prohibits the granting of asylum to individuals found to have themselves engaged in persecution applies to those who were compelled to do so by threats of deaths or torture. The petitioner in the case, Daniel Girmai Negusie, at age 18, was forcibly conscripted by Eritrean military forces in the longstanding war with Ethiopia. On account of his Ethiopian heritage, however, Negusie refused to fight against those he deemed his “brothers.” He served roughly two years in prison on account of his refusal. Following his term of imprisonment, Negusie was directed to serve as a guard at the same prison where he had been held. Torture reportedly is common at the prison. Based on his work as a prisoner, the Fifth Circuit denied Negusie relief, finding the forcible service as a prison guard irrelevant to deciding applicability of the bar.

The Court reversed the Fifth Circuit's decision for the U.S. government and remanded, Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for an 8-1 Court. Justice Scalia concurred, joined by Justice Alito. Justice Stevens concurred in part and dissented in part, joined by Justice Breyer. Justice Thomas filed a dissent.

For Thomas Ragland's analysis of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Neguisie v. Holder, which addressed the bar on asylum to persecutors, click here.

(HT: ImmigrationProf Blog)