essays
In the United States, the Right to Asylum is Under Attack
by Amir Khouzam
July 23, 2019
Amir Khouzam is a humanitarian specialist who has worked in refugee protection with the UNCHR in Egypt and with Syrian civil society in protection policy throughout Syria. He was the managing editor for print and editorial at Columbia University's Journal of International Affairs from 2018 to 2019. This is his second piece published with frank news.
With the rhetoric around immigration in the United States reaching new heights, it can be easy to overlook subtle changes in policy and official practice that can dramatically affect those most directly involved in immigration enforcement. Such is the case with an email outlining new policy directives for Asylum Officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “Our Southern border,” opens the email, credited to Kenneth Thomas Cuccinelli II, “is facing a daily crisis of aliens overwhelming our ports of entry, many of whom are attempting to enter and remain in the country in violation of our laws.”
Mr. Cuccinelli is the Acting Director at USCIS, the federal agency housed within the Department of Homeland Security that is tasked with executing American immigration policy. He assumed office on June 10th, following the resignation of former director Lee Cissna at the request of President Donald Trump. Mr. Cuccinelli is a long-standing supporter of the president and shares many of his extreme views. One of Mr. Cuccinelli’s first official acts was to blame a young man for his own death and the death of his daughter after they drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande. In his previous job as Attorney General for Virginia, he defended anti-sodomy laws, sued the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, and pushed for legislation to prevent children of undocumented migrants in the United States from attending university.
But the recent note to his employees tasked with processing and filing legal claims of asylum threatens to do serious harm to some of the most vulnerable subjects of American immigration policy.
The email, in which the acting director thanks agents for their service to the United States and reminds them of their oath to defend the constitution, is an alarmist call to action against abuses of American law.
Upon reading the email it would be easy to assume that the act in question – claiming asylum in the United States, by those who may have crossed the border under irregular or unclear circumstances – is a crime. In fact, the opposite is true.
The Trump administration clearly does not appreciate this reality. The email makes no mention of it and instead goes to great lengths to obscure it, with urgent language and misleading statistics.
Among its claims are that USCIS agents are being too lenient in granting positive ‘credible fear’ determinations following initial screening sessions with migrants. This is not true.
Credible fear screenings, conducted by federal officials when people first enter the United States seeking asylum, are organized around three major questions: has the applicant ever been harmed in their home country; have they or their child ever been threatened with harm, and; have they been harmed as a result of discrimination based on religion, race, nationality, social affiliation, or political opinion.
These are broad questions by design, and most people have historically received positive determinations. That is because the screenings are not themselves determinant of whether applicants have a legitimate claim of asylum. They are instead an opportunity for immigration officials to decide whether an individual should be deported immediately, or be granted an asylum hearing in front of a judge. Given the circumstances most asylum seekers are fleeing, a high rate of positive determinations has been consistent across both recent Republican and Democratic administrations.
But there are strong indications that, contrary to Mr. Cuccinelli’s claims, fewer people than ever are receiving positive results due to new obstacles put in place by the Trump Administration. Its zero-tolerance policy and practice of separating families, draconian interpretations of whether or not minors at the border are ‘unaccompanied’ even when they arrive with close relatives, and a new directive that precludes people from claiming violence at the hands of gangs as a legitimate fear from which to flee have all contributed to heightened rates of early denial, long before a judge has looked at a claim.
This leads to Mr. Cuccinelli’s second misdirection. In his email, the acting director suggests that of those who are granted positive results and permitted to remain in the United States, most skip town, disappearing into the masses of Undocumented America. This is a false claim and a pernicious one, that is no more true for having been repeated by the Vice President of the United States on live television. This year, the Washington Post fact-checked Vice President Pence’s claim that 90 percent of applicants do not show up to their asylum hearing by referring to the Department of Justice’s very own statistics, which showed that in 2018 about 40 percent of applicants skipped their hearings. Even these numbers are an anomaly: from 2013 to 2017, the no-show rate was between 5 and 11 percent.
But these facts and the lies and misdirection Mr. Cuccinelli deploys instead are academic. At the core of the issue is a simple reality.
The Trump Administration is asking immigration agents to break the law. They are requesting that federal officials refuse more people their legal right to claim asylum, and they are couching this request in peaens to patriotism and the constitution.
Mr. Cuccinelli calls the American immigration system ‘abused.’ Rather it is abusive, as we have seen this week, and last week, and long before that, with children separated by their parents, and adult detainees held in overcrowded and underserviced facilities, forced to drink from toilets and denied access to showers.
Recent images of Vice President Mike Pence standing stone-faced in front of desperate and detained men have rightly dominated the news cycle. But it is important too that we take notice of the less public forms of abuse being exercised by the American government. In Mr. Cuccinelli’s email is contained a naked appeal to American officials to ratchet up the abuse, to formalize it, to deny more people the protections that both international and American law says is their right.
Hope for the sanctity of asylum lies for now in the integrity and good judgment of immigration officers, who Mr. Cuccinelli himself acknowledges have the power to grant or deny temporary reprieve. But what this email reveals is that formal American institutions are now actively at cross purposes with whatever humanitarian, legal, and empathic instincts their staff might exhibit. That the institution might in this case prevail should very much be a credible fear to us all.
essays
Beshi Beshi Gorom and Solidarity in Cox’s Bazar
by Eri Tayama
June 27, 2019
Eri Tayama is a humanitarian aid worker currently based in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. She has previously worked for those affected by natural disasters and armed conflicts in Nepal, Ukraine,
Lebanon, Syria, and South Sudan.
Under the scorching sun, tarpaulin and bamboo shelters stretch as far as the eye can see. Compounded with the heat, the garbage that is littered all over, and the excreta from open defecation give off a distinctive smell. The children are frolicking around everywhere. The phrase “beshi beshi gorom,” or “very, very hot” is my favorite phrase that serves as the icebreaker to communicate with the people here who give a shy smile back.
Since May, I have been working in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh for the third time, to assist the Rohingya refugees. After violence between the Myanmar state and Rohingya broke out on August 25, 2017, an estimated 745,000 people 2019 Joint Response Plan for Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis January - December have fled from Rakhine State, Myanmar to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, making it “by far the largest and fastest refugee influx” ever recorded in the country’s history. However, this was not the Rohingya’s first massive, forced displacement.
Cox’s Bazar’s topography, or the shapes of the land, have played an important role in the humanitarian response here. In order to accommodate Rohingya arrivals of the past two years, the once-green hills of Cox’s Bazar, where elephants and other wild animals resided, were stripped bare to build makeshift shelters that were desperately needed. In the early months, people were constantly on the move – for example, seeking to reunite with family members lost along the way – making it extremely hard for humanitarian aid workers to grasp and address the needs of the people they are mandated to serve. Another major difficulty has been the insufficient number of quality roads, inhibiting vehicle access within the spontaneous camp sites – vehicle access being crucial for humanitarian aid organizations to provide adequate services where needed. The number of paved roads is increasing all the time, and this progress drastically improves access in many parts of the Rohingya settlements, although there remain many areas where access to hundreds of displaced Rohingya is still a challenge. Given these difficulties (as well as many other constraints), the lives of the affected population continue to be dire. In some camps, the density remains as high as 10m2 of land per person. Ibid.
The number of gender-sensitive and culturally appropriate latrines and bathing facilities is still insufficient by all standards of humanitarian practice. The unplanned nature of settlements poses continued risks of spread of communicable disease, such as acute watery diarrhea.
Limited space and the need to prioritize life-saving assistance have also hindered from allocating enough spaces for learning facilities for children and youth. Furthermore, several factors including, the lack of opportunity for own food production, movement constraints placed by the government, and limited financial access to food and cooking fuel, are contributing to the displaced population’s dependency on food aid.
The local Bangladeshi host community has also been impacted. Many Bangladeshis in Cox’s Bazar have lost both access to the government forest land where they previously farmed and work opportunities due to cheaper refugee labor. These contextual circumstances are conducive to tension and violence both within and between the displaced and host communities. In light of all of these challenges – and recognizing that the 1.2 million Rohingya and the Bangladeshis in Cox’s Bazar deserve better services and support, the UN is calling for $920.5 million in relief funding from member states and private donors in 2019. Ibid.
This is not to say that the camps in Cox’s Bazar are filled with hopelessness. When I first came in 2017, I was often touched by the generosity and kindness that I received, from the people I was meant to serve. It was often small gestures - when my Rohingya team members saw me sweat like crazy, they laughed and fanned me with cardboards or whatever they had handy, knowing I wasn’t used to the thankless heat and humidity. I was often invited to their home for tea or lunch after a busy morning, when these staples were rationed out to households at really minimal levels. Then was this one guy that I worked very closely with, and at the end of my mission, he gave me a bag of things like soaps, shampoo, toothpaste, a towel, and toothbrush, items I believe were some of the most expensive things you could get in these camps. Looking back, I think he chose these items because personal hygiene is such a challenge in Cox’s Bazar. I know it meant a lot for him to give such a gift to me, and it really meant the world to me to receive it.
Working in Bangladesh I am constantly moved by the Rohingya’s resilience and strength in the face of such hardship. Would I be so friendly, so kind, if it were me in their shoes? Since I returned this year, some of my colleagues have told me that the crisis has been fostering changes in the displaced population’s views and values. For example, traditionally, women stayed at home while husbands or male family members worked and socialized in the community. Due to the limited livelihood opportunities in Bangladesh, the displaced population is gradually becoming more open to women working outside home to support the family. The women themselves are also said to be inspired by the many female humanitarian aid workers working along men.
Taking in all of the Cox’s Bazar as I’ve described it, the massive needs of the people who live here and the continued risks to their health and well-being, sometimes makes me feel helpless and I cannot help but ask myself what one person can even do. Through working with Bangladeshi and Rohingya colleagues, I am learning what solidarity means in such an extreme situation. It’s not just the relief items, water or medical care that matter to the affected population, but it is the personal engagement and committed relationships that makes the difference.
Everywhere I have been as a humanitarian aid worker, this has been an essential but under- appreciated aspect of the response wherever we are, solidarity is the most important way to support the world’s over 70 million displaced population’s hopes of returning to safe and sustainable livelihood, something we can all agree is a shared aspiration for humanity.