NEWSFLASH trump HAS BUILT THE wall: PART I: BLOCK ASYLUM
At this point in time, if you have read the news, you will realize that Trump has virtually built the wall preventing both "illegal" and legal immigration.
PART I: BLOCK ASYLUM:
(1) Although the Trump Administration officially ended its zero tolerance policy, U.S. Attorney General Sessions has nearly closed the door on asylum seekers by essentially eliminating domestic abuse and gang violence as qualifying credible fear grounds for asylum; Sessions did this through having the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) refer Matter of A-B- to him for review (through 8 C.F.R. §1003.1(h)(1)(i)) and overturning Matter of A-R-C-G-, the long standing precedent that allowed for these two grounds to qualify. Unfortunately, Sessions was legally able to overturn this precedent (along with others), despite not being an immigration judge, since the immigration court system is overseen by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
In addition to making it close to impossible for many to successfully obtain asylum through eliminating these credible fear grounds, the Trump Administration is giving fewer asylum seekers a chance to argue their case before an actual immigration judge by having expanded its use of expedited removal through Trump's Executive Order; in expedited removal, the U.S. immigration officer has unfettered power to deport the alien, and, often doing so without allowing them to obtain legal representation or present evidence; there is no right to appeal a deportation order through expedited removal This fast-tracked deportation method allows for a greater chance of error endangering the lives of those seeking asylum in the U.S. Despite the fact that expedited removal is not permitted to be applied in the case where the alien is seeking asylum, asylum seekers still end up being subjected to expedited removal either by the U.S. officer pressuring them to not raise their asylum case or by the government failing to ask them regarding their fear of being returned to their country.
To make matters worse, the Trump administration has further prevented asylum seekers from making a successful case by increasingly and unnecessarily jailing them rather than paroling them into the U.S. while their case is pending; an American Immigration Council report has found that jailing asylum seekers hinders their success by preventing them from obtaining legal representation to effectively argue their case; the report also found that many asylum seekers, especially families, are jailed despite their high compliance rate of attending all of the necessary hearings and qualifying for release by ICE.
Further errors will surely happen for asylum seekers under Sessions' quota demands on immigration judges and the immigration judges' and BIA's loss of its general ability to administratively close cases (Matter of Castro-Tum overturning Matter of Avetsyan); in the meantime, the National Association of Immigration Judges, have filed a formal grievance against the U.S. DOJ accusing Sessions of interfering with the judges' independent judgement in decision-making.
PART II: COMING SOON
***Please keep in mind that this blog posting is for educational purposes only (i.e., to give you general information and a general understanding of this immigration related matter); this blog posting does not provide specific legal advice and does not form an attorney-client relationship.***
Sources:
Domestic Abuse and Gang Violence:
(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/politics/sessions-domestic-violence-asylum.html
(2) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/they-came-fearing-their-lives-now-more-are-being-denied-n901051
(3) https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1070866/download
Expansion of Expedited Removal
(4) https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/primer-expedited-removal
Detaining Asylum Seekers
(5) http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-family-asylum-20180817-story.html
(6) https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/detaining-families-a-study-of-asylum-adjudication-in-family-detention
Quota for Judges
(9) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/08/08/ag-jeff-sessions-accused-interference-immigration-judges/935016002/
(10) https://www.texastribune.org/2018/04/04/immigration-judges-quota-mandate-will-do-more-harm-good-already-clogge/
(11) https://cis.org/Arthur/Attorney-General-Ends-Administrative-Closure
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