Jason Dzubow on Political Asylum

Chilean Revolutionary “Demands” Political Asylum – Gets Bupkis

I’ve long had a soft spot in my heart for Worker’s World newspaper, with its tag line: “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite!”  I can’t say I always agreed with the paper, but is does sometimes highlight issues not covered by more mainstream news outlets.  

One recent story caught my attention.  Last December, the paper had an article about Chilean “revolutionary” Victor Toro.  Mr. Toro claims to be a leader and founder of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR – the Revolutionary Left Movement) of Chile.  He was tortured in Chile because of his political opposition to General Pinochet’s dictatorship.  Mr. Toro has also been a well-known activist for immigrant’s rights in New York City for many years. 

 

Victor Toro: Revenge is a dish best served Chile... er, cold.

According to Worker’s World, Mr. Toro, who is undocumented, was “racially profiled” by immigration agents and arrested in 2007.  He was then placed into removal proceedings where he “demanded” political asylum.

First, it strikes me as a bit ironic that a Chilean revolutionary–someone who opposed the U.S.-backed coup that violently overthrew elected president Salvador Allende in 1973–would seek asylum in the United States, the same country that helped orchestrate the coup. 

Second, it seems strange to “demand” asylum.  Maybe it is a technical point, but asylum is a discretionary form of relief; this means that the U.S. government can deny asylum in the exercise of its discretion (say, for example, if the asylum seeker is not a person of good moral character).  Given the discretionary nature of the relief, no one can “demand” asylum.  They have to ask for it.  Nicely.

Earlier this month, the Immigration Judge denied asylum.  Mr. Toro’s attorney issued a strongly-worded statement condemning the decision and vowing to appeal.  From what I can glean from the statement, the IJ denied relief principally because Mr. Toro did not file for asylum within one year of arriving in the U.S. and because country conditions in Chile had changed, making it safe for him to return. 

I have never worked on an asylum case from Chile, but given the current country conditions (good), I am not surprised that Mr. Toro’s case was denied.  What seems a real shame is that, had Mr. Toro applied in a timely manner, he might well have qualified for “humanitarian asylum.”  Humanitarian asylum is available to people who have suffered severe persecution in their country, and is available even if country conditions have improved.  Basically, it is a recognition that some people should not have to go back to a country where they suffered severe persecution.  

Mr. Toro was tortured severely in Chile, but apparently his failure to timely file for asylum prevented him from obtaining humanitarian asylum.  Thus–once again–an arbitrary filing deadline has caused real harm.  Frankly, I have my doubts that Mr. Toro will suffer persecution if he returns to Chile.  But considering that he suffered torture in his country previously, he should have received humanitarian asylum.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – 100 Years Later

On March 25, 1911, fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory building at 29 Washington Place in New York City.  Less than 20 minutes later, 146 people were dead, mostly young immigrant women.  The fire was one of the worst industrial disasters in U.S. history, and had a major impact on work place safety, the labor movement, journalism, and many other areas of American life.  One hundred years later, the lessons of the fire are still relevant and the victims are still remembered.

Cornell University has a great website exploring the history and significance of the fire.  Particularly moving is a list of the victims that gives some information about each one (the last several victims were only positively identified this year).  Most were recent Jewish or Italian immigrant women in their late teens or early twenties.  From the introduction on the Cornell website:  

This [fire] has had great significance to this day because it highlights the inhumane working conditions to which industrial workers can be subjected. To many, its horrors epitomize the extremes of industrialism.  The tragedy still dwells in the collective memory of the nation and of the international labor movement. The victims of the tragedy are still celebrated as martyrs at the hands of industrial greed.

The family of each victim received $75 in compensation for their loss (!), and the owners of the factory were tried and acquitted of criminal charges (many victims died because doors in the building were locked to prevent theft and because there was not adequate safety equipment).  Out of this tragedy, the union movement–and in particular, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union–was strengthened and labor laws in New York were improved. 

There are many commemorations of the event in New York City and around the country.  One website that has excellent coverage of the 100 year anniversary is the Jewish Daily Forward.  The Forward is a labor newspaper that has been around since 1897, and that covered the fire extensively in 1911.  For information on commemorations, including a poetry contest, the Forward can’t be beat.  Below is the winning entry in the Forward’s poetry contest:

Reckoning

She was a woman worth a certain amount

to her family: a pension or lump sum.

All I could say was this is human

when I saw her on the street, red

gathered at what must have been her neck. Count

the holes in my body — she faced me: I retched — some

of which I made when jumping. What man

reckons what the living owe the dead?

I didn’t kill you. My every liberal part

aches for the laborer, the immigrant,

the seamstress whose callused finger bled.

I’m killed and rise up daily. My scalded heart

fibrillates, a sack of worker ants.

My words in your mouth are beit-din’s lead.

— ZACKARY SHOLEM BERGER

Originally published on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Somali Asylee Sues His Torturer in U.S. Court

A Somali human rights activist who received asylum in Great Britain has sued his alleged torturer, Abdi Aden Magan, in a U.S. District Court in Ohio.  According to the Associated Press:

Abukar Hassan Ahmed filed suit against his alleged torturer.

The lawsuit claims Abdi Aden Magan of Columbus[, Ohio] authorized the torture of Abukar Hassan Ahmed when Magan served as investigations chief of the National Security Service of Somalia, a force dubbed the “Gestapo of Somalia.”  The suit… seeks unspecified damages from Magan, who served under Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The allegations are a chance for Ahmed to tell the world what happened to him, said Andrea Evans, legal director of the Center for Justice & Accountability, a San Francisco-based center that has brought a number of similar lawsuits.  “We see it as a much broader call for justice than just financial gain,” Evans said. “It really is kind of telling history accurately.”

Last week, the State Department weighed in with a letter indicating that Mr. Magan does not enjoy immunity from suit:

[T]aking into account the relevant principles of customary international law, and considering the overall impact of this matter on the foreign policy of the United States, the Department of State has determined that Defendant Magan does not enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

I wonder about the immigration status of the alleged torturer, Mr. Magan.  If the civil suit demonstrates that he is, in fact, a torturer, it seems to me that DHS should move to deport Mr. Magan, or perhaps DOJ would choose to prosecute him criminally (for the torture and–most likely–for committing immigration fraud by lying to cover up the torture).  Our nation should not be in the business of harboring human rights abusers, and once such an abuser is identified, we should move swiftly to see that justice is done.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Mexican Asylum Seekers Form Coalition

I’ve written before about the escalating violence in Mexico and the corresponding increase in people seeking asylum in the United States.  The chances of a Mexican person gaining asylum in the U.S. are very low - only about 2% of Mexican asylum cases are granted.  Now, apparently, Mexican asylum seekers and their advocates have formed a coalition to support each other in their case.  From the Americas Mexico Blog:

 

Cipriana Jurado: El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!

Immigration attorneys and immigrant-rights groups in the Texas border city of El Paso said they have formed a coalition aimed at providing greater support for asylum seekers facing a hurdle-ridden application process.

The director of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Louie Gilot, said cases of Mexicans fleeing drug-related violence have risen significantly over the past two years and that the asylum seekers include former police officers, rights activists, journalists, business leaders and even government officials.

Announcement of the coalition of asylum applicants coincides with a statement by Mexican activist Cipriana Jurado that she has begun the process of seeking political asylum. Jurado told Efe Tuesday that she had kept up her activism over the past five years despite the slayings of more than 19 colleagues and family members but finally decided to flee Mexico to save her own life and seek protection for herself and her children in the United States.

The violence in Mexico is some of the worst in the world.  Perhaps the new coalition will help improve the chances for Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States.  Given the low success rate of Mexican asylum cases, it is apparent that those fleeing the drug violence need all the help they can get.

Originally published on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Asylum for an Anti-Semite?

A recent editorial in the Moscow Times calls on the U.S. to deny political asylum to Ashot Yegiazaryan, a member of the Russian Duma from the nationalistic Liberal Democratic Party, who fled to the United States to escape criminal charges related to some shady business deals.

For these guys, you can't spell Russia without SS.

Like a number of Russian oligarchs, Mr. Yegiazaryan made his money in the freewheeling 1990′s and then entered politics.  His troubles began when a multi-billion dollar business deal in Moscow went bad, and lawsuits and criminal accusations followed.  Ultimately, Mr. Yegiazaryan left Russia and made his way to (where else?) Beverly Hills.  Now, depending on the rumor you choose to believe, he will be seeking political asylum in the United States, or he already has a green card.  Mr. Yegiazaryan has denied the latter rumor, as it is apparently illegal for a member of the Duma to hold residency in another country.  In the mean time, the Russian Duma has stripped Mr. Yegiazaryan of his immunity and the Russian government is pursuing criminal charges.

This scenario–of a businessman rising rapidly to wealth and prominence only to be brought down by criminal charges and accusations of fraud–seems common in Russia these days.  When I was a law clerk at the Arlington Immigration Court (in 1999), I worked on such a case.  Alex Konanykhin, was a Russian businessman whose case bounced between the Immigration Court, the BIA, and the U.S. District Court.  In the end, he received asylum and wrote a book about his experience.  Then, of course, there is the case of Russia’s richest businessman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is currently sitting in a Russian prison, convicted of criminal fraud.

Like these other cases, it is difficult to tell whether Mr. Yegiazaryan is a criminal or a victim.  What’s clear in his case, however, is that he is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, a party founded and dominated by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has made many anti-Semetic and rascist remarks. 

Whether, as the Moscow Times posits, Mr. Yegiazaryan should be denied political asylum (assuming that he qualifies for asylum in the first place) on account of his membership in the LDP may be a complex question.  If the LDP has “ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in” the persecution of people based on a protected ground, than Mr. Yegiazaryan would not be eligible for asylum.  The key word here is “incited.”  I do not know what Mr. Yegiazaryan might have said or done, but others in his party, in particular the party’s leader, Mr. Zhirinovsky, have accused Jews of ruining Russia, sending Russian women to foreign countries as prostitutes, selling children and organs, and provoking the Holocaust.  That sounds like incitement to me.  At the minimum, for Mr. Yegiazaryan to win asylum, he will have some explaining to do.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

A New Guide to Establishing Asylum Eligibility for Victims of Human Trafficking and Forced Marriage

The World Organization for Human Rights USA has recently published a Guide to Establishing the Asylum Eligibility of Victims of Human Trafficking and Forced Marriage.  Even a cursory review of the new guide reveals that it will be an important new resource for attorneys and others who represent people seeking asylum on the basis of gender persecution.  From the World Organization for Human Rights USA website:  

Human trafficking – as well as forced marriage, often a form of trafficking – is indisputably recognized around the world as an egregious human rights abuse, and many victims of this abuse fear that they cannot safely return to their home countries after escaping.  Increasingly, courts around the world are concluding that victims of trafficking and forced marriage are eligible for refugee protection.  While some U.S. immigration judges and asylum officers have also recognized this principle, there is not a large body of binding U.S. precedent specifically addressing trafficking or forced marriage.  But with a targeted litigation strategy, attorneys can convince more and more adjudicators to recognize what is becoming firmly established in international law.

The guide is designed to assist attorneys in crafting arguments and writing briefs to support their clients’ asylum applications based on trafficking and/or forced marriage. 

I’ve litigated a few cases like this, and they can be tough.  Although both human trafficking and forced marriage are types of persecution, they do not easily fit into the protected grounds set forth in asylum law.  I suppose that was once true for persecution based on female genital mutilation and sexual orientation, but now, persecution based on those grounds may form the basis for an asylum claim.  Hopefully, the new guide will help establish trafficking and domestic violence as basis for asylum, so that people fleeing such persecution can gain protection in the United States.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Asylum Training for Health Professionals

Physicians for Human Rights will conduct a training for health professionals on April 9, 2011 in Houston, Texas.  The program is titled, Aiding Immigrant Survivors of Torture and Other Human Rights Abuses: Physical and Psychological Documentation of Trauma.  It aims to instruct health professionals on the skills necessary to perform physical and psychological evaluations of survivors of human rights abuses:

PHR's volunteer network of over 400 health professionals assists survivors of human rights abuses by conducting forensic psychological and physical evaluations to document evidence of torture and abuse. Our clinicians have specialized training and expertise in recognizing and documenting the trauma of conflict, displacement, abuse, discrimination, and oppression—issues at the heart of many humanitarian relief applications. The medical-legal affidavits that they submit to courts on behalf of survivors are frequently the determining factor when judges grant asylum or other relief from deportation.

 

Even the best doctors will benefit from this training.

I often use reports from health professionals to help bolster my cases, particularly where there are physical scars caused by torture, so I can attest to the value of such reports to asylum seekers.  A well-written report can often sway the fact finder and help a client gain asylum. 

For those interested in the training, more information is available here.

Originally published on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Twenty-Year-Old Mexican Police Chief–a/k/a the Bravest Woman in Mexico–Files for Asylum

In October 2010, Marisol Valles became the police chief of Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, a small town near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.  Her predecessor had been beheaded by a drug gang, and the whole area has been plagued by horrific drug violence.  No one else wanted the job, so Ms. Valles, a criminal justice major at a local college, stepped in.  Mexican newspapers dubbed her “the bravest woman in Mexico,” but now, sources in Mexico and the U.S. confirm that she has crossed the border to ask for asylum in the United States.

 

The bravest woman in Mexico is also smart enough to know when to run away.

Ms. Valles asked for an eight-day leave for a personal matter involving her child and said she would return on Monday.  The town fired her after she failed to return and they could not reach her.  Apparently, she received multiple death threats, and feared for herself and her family.

MSNBC reports that she is in the U.S. and will seek asylum before an Immigration Judge.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in northern Mexico, “hundreds of police officers have been slain by drug traffickers who have targeted officers’ families, homes, and places of work.”  Nevertheless, the odds are not in Ms. Valles favor.  According to statistics from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, of the 3,231 Mexicans who applied for asylum in Immigration Court in FY 2010, only 49 cases, or about 1.5%, were granted. 

The reason for the low success rate is that people fleeing Mexican drug violence do not generally meet the definition of a “refugee,” a person with a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or particular social group.  While such people have a “well-founded fear,” they generally cannot demonstrate that the fear is on account of a protected ground. 

Another possible reason for the low success rate of Mexican asylum seekers is the U.S. government’s fear of opening the floodgate to many thousands of people who fear the rampant violence in Mexico. 

Given Ms. Valles’s high profile, her odds of gaining asylum might be better than the average Mexican’s (or even the average Mexican police officer’s).  Whether or not she succeeds in obtaining asylum, her case is another sad reminder of the difficulties faced by our Southern neighbor.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Political Asylum for Libyan Students in the US?

More than 1,000 Libyan students are currently studying in the United States, and the continuing unrest in their homeland has them worried.  To make matters worse, the Libyan Embassy in the U.S. apparently contacted many of the students and threatened to take away government scholarships unless they attended a pro-Khadafy rally in Washington, DC.  The Libyan Ambassador (predictably) denied any such threats.

 

Anti-Khadafy protestors tell it like it is.

Some of the students are politically active.  For example, a student in New York has started a Twitter account called Enough Gaddafi that has over 7,000 followers (a website is coming soon).  In Kentucky, a group of 50 Libyans gathered to voice their support for the protestors in Libya.  And Libyan students in Colorado and Oklahoma are speaking out publicly against Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy.

Given the current situation, can Libyans in the U.S. successfully claim political asylum? 

As usual in immigration law, the answer is a definite maybe.  For those students listed by name in newspapers and who engaged in anti-Khadafy political activity, or who made anti-Khadafy comments, I would imagine that they have a solid claim for political asylum.  If Mr. Khadafy remains in power, the students would face severe consequences upon their return to Libya.  There is no doubt that Mr. Khadafy’s regime tortures and murders political opponents.  Further, given the Libyan Embassy’s attempt to rally Libyans in the U.S. to Mr. Khadafy’s defense, it is very likely that the Libyan government is aware of the students’ political opinions.  

For those Libyans not mentioned in newspapers, or who were not contacted by the Embassy about attending the pro-Khadafy rally, an asylum claim might be more difficult.  Generalized strife in a person’s home country–in and of itself–is usually not sufficient to qualify for asylum.  Whether a particular individual qualifies for asylum would depend on his or her personal circumstances.

Finally, the situation in Libya is very fluid.  Perhaps Mr. Khadafy will be gone soon (we can only hope), but perhaps not.  As the situation on the ground continues to evolve, so too will the possibility for asylum for Libyans in the U.S.

Originally published on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.

Fifty Million Environmental Refugees by 2020

A recent article in the Huffington Post reports on last week’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.  Experts at the meeting warned that, “In 2020, the UN has projected that we will have 50 million environmental refugees.” 

At least some people are benefitting from global warming.

“When people are not living in sustainable conditions, they migrate,” stated University of California, Los Angeles professor Cristina Tirado at the AAAS meeting.  She and other speakers outlined how climate change is impacting both food security and food safety.  Southern Europe is already seeing a sharp increase in what has long been a slow but steady flow of migrants from Africa.

Of course, asylum is not available to people who fear return to their country on account of environmental disaster.  In the U.S., we have provided Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) to people from certain countries that have faced natural disasters.  Most recently, after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Haitians in the United States were granted TPS so that they could remain in the United States until conditions improve.

If predictions are accurate, and more people migrate to escape the impact of global warming, the current system of asylum, refugee resettlement, and TPS may prove inadequate.  Long term environmental change may make it necessary for millions of people to migrate, and impossible for them ever to return home.  If the migrations predicted at the AAAS meeting actually materialize, the U.S. and other developed countries–which are presumably more able to deal with the effects of climate change–will need to re-think how they deal with such large numbers of refugees. 

In this case, it seems to me that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  The question is: Do our governments have the political will to do something about the problem?  Let’s hope so.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com.