House should reject measure weakening protection for asylum seekers

This week the House Judiciary Committee considered the “Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act” (H.R. 391), a bill that would undermine access to refugee protection in the United States and force those with legitimate fears of persecution back into danger. Like President Trump’s executive orders relating to refugees and migrants, it sends the wrong signal to the world—both to those countries hosting the overwhelming majority of the world’s refugees, and to those inclined to shirk their responsibilities. 

In the wake of World War II, the United States helped draft treaties to make sure that the world’s nations did not turn refugees back to persecution. Our government ratified the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and established an asylum system to grant status to refugees who sought this country’s protection from persecution. 

{mosads}A series of bills since 1996, however, have injected a barrage of hurdles and technicalities into the system. This new bill would one of those—and one of the worst. When then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced an earlier version of the bill it in January, he asserted that it was needed to “tighten” the credible fear screening standard, claiming that the Obama administration had granted asylum “even when evidence suggests asylum claims are fraudulent.” 

But the U.S. asylum and immigration systems already have extensive tools to identify and combat fraud. These tools should be effectively and fairly implemented, and the GAO’s recommendation that DHS and DOJ develop tools for detecting fraud patterns should be implemented.

The sad reality is that it is already exceedingly difficult for refugees to secure asylum in the United States. Through its pro bono legal representation program, Human Rights First sees, day in and day out, the daunting challenges refugees face in the complex, and often cruel, U.S. asylum system.  

Refugees with all-too-real fears of persecution often find their asylum claims denied or severely delayed. They may be denied asylum or returned to persecution due to a one-year filing deadline they didn’t even know existed, or because they have been mislabeled as supporters of terrorism. The immigration law’s broad inadmissibility provisions sweep up innocent refugees who were kidnapped, enslaved, or threatened by armed groups. One asylum seeker from Burundi had his asylum claim denied initially, and was held in immigration detention for twenty months, after he explained that an armed group had robbed him of $4 and his lunch, which the immigration agency regarded as “material support” for the group.   

Asylum seekers placed into expedited removal processing are subjected to a grueling screening interview within days of arrival where they are expected, typically without legal counsel, to demonstrate that they have a significant possibility of establishing eligibility for asylum. Those who pass this hurdle are not granted asylum at this point. They are simply allowed to proceed to file a request for asylum, a claim that will be assessed in immigration court removal proceedings. Human Rights First has documented border agents’ unlawful rejection of asylum seekers and the failure of U.S. immigration officers to release from detention asylum seekers who meet the relevant asylum parole standards. Many are held in facilities with conditions identical to those in criminal correctional facilities for months and even years.

The Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act would make a harsh and rights-violating system even crueler. It would cut government-funding for legal counsel, raise the credible fear screening standard to an unjustly high level, and put battered women and LGBT refugees at risk of return to death and violence when they have fled countries that fail or refuse to protect them from persecution by criminal gangs. It would also likely block asylum seekers from release from detention on parole, even when they can establish identity and present no flight or safety risk. Not only does this approach violate U.S. commitments, it would also be exceedingly costly and wasteful, particularly given the availability of cost-effective and humane alternatives.  

Furthermore, the bill would deny asylum to large numbers of refugees based on transit or stays in countries – including Mexico – where they had no legal status or no lasting legal status (and to which they cannot be returned in most cases) and allow asylum seekers to be bounced back to Mexico in the absence of any agreement with that country. Just last week Human Rights First issued a new report documenting the dangers and protection deficiencies facing refugees in Mexico. Despite this reality, the bill would evade U.S. refugee protection responsibilities, foisting them on to Mexico. 

This bill undermines U.S. global leadership and subverts international law. The House should reject this bill and call on the administration to implement refugee protection laws, treaties, and safeguards. 

Acer is Human Rights First’s senior director of refugee protection.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.