In the same week that the U.S House of Representatives passed restrictive new legislation that would make it far more difficult for refugees to gain asylum in the U.S., another arm of government, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF), issued a report charging that asylum-seekers are often jailed for long periods, treated like criminals, deported in a capricious and inconsistent manner that shows "extreme disparities" in who is granted asylum or deported, and are likely win asylum only if they have lawyers.
The House passed the REAL-ID Act, authored by conservative Republican James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin by a vote of 261 to 161, with 42 Democrats joining 219 Republicans in the majority. President Bush endorsed the measure, but did not actively lobby for its passage. Instead, he is pressing for a 'guest worker' program that would facilitate the entry of more immigrants, especially from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, who provide low-cost labor for jobs Americans do not seem to want.
The REAL-ID bill now goes to the U.S. Senate, where it is likely to face stiff bipartisan opposition. Sensenbrenner introduced a similar bill in the last session of Congress as part of the intelligence reorganization legislation designed to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, but immigration provisions were largely stripped from the final bill by the Senate as a compromise to assure passage of the broader legislation.
The bill would block states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, restrict asylum , and complete a controversial border fence between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. The White House said in a policy statement issued hours before debate began that the bill would "strengthen the ability of the United States to protect against terrorist entry into and activities within the United States." But immigration advocates, groups supporting civil and privacy rights, and state government organizations opposed the bill. They said it would make it harder for those fleeing persecution to seek asylum in this country and would endanger public safety and national security by denying driver's licenses to millions of illegal immigrants.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF), established under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), announced results of a study of how a new immigration procedure – Expedited Removal – was affecting asylum-seekers.
The study found that asylum-seekers are consistently detained in jails or jail-like facilities, along with criminals and aliens who have committed criminal offenses.
Immigration judges, the study concluded, had significantly different rates of granting or denying asylum claims, even within the same court, and immigration officers sometimes improperly encouraged asylum-seekers to withdraw their applications for admission.
In 15 percent (12/79) of observed cases, the study said, when an arriving alien expressed a fear of return to the inspector, the alien was not referred for a hearing. "Among these twelve cases were several aliens who expressed fear of political, religious, or ethnic persecution, which are clearly related to the grounds for asylum. In seven of these twelve cases, the inspector incorrectly indicated on the sworn statement that the applicant claimed he had no fear of return."
Most DHS procedures lack effective quality assurance measures to ensure that they are consistently followed, the study declared. "Consequently, the outcome of an asylum claim appears to depend not only on the strength of the claim, but also on which officials consider the claim, and whether or not the alien has an attorney." Asylum-seekers without a lawyer had a much lower chance of being granted asylum (2%) than those with an attorney (25%).
While DHS policy favors the release of asylum-seekers who have established credible fear, identity, community ties, and no likelihood of posing a security risk, implementation of these criteria also varies widely from place to place. The study found there was little documentation in the files to allow a determination of how these criteria were actually being applied.
The study said that in denying asylum applications on the basis of credibility, immigration judges frequently cited documents the study found to be unreliable and incomplete.
It added that there are serious impediments to communication and information-sharing within DHS. Unreliable and/or incomplete documentation "is susceptible to being misinterpreted", or "misapplied by the immigration judge, and may ultimately result in the denial of the asylum-seeker's claim."
The study noted that the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) sustained 24% of Expedited Removal asylum appeals in fiscal year 2001, only 2-4% of such appeals have been granted since 2002, when the court began allowing the issuance of "summary affirmances" rather than detailed decisions. "It is highly unlikely that any asylum seeker denied by an immigration judge will find protection by appealing to the BIA."
It noted that Expedited Removal has been expanded twice in recent years, "without first addressing the flaws in the system which undermine the protections for asylum seekers".
The study recommended that the incoming Secretary of Homeland Security "ensure that it is no longer he – but a high ranking official who reports to him – who is responsible for coordinating refugee and asylum matters among the various bureaus. Without day-to-day oversight of asylum policy and its implementation department-wide, the flaws in the system identified in this study cannot be effectively addressed", leaving asylum-seekers "at risk of being returned to countries where they may face persecution."
The study also recommended that the DHS should: Create an office -- headed by a high-level official --authorized to address cross-cutting issues related to asylum and expedited removal; ease the burden on the detention system, the immigration courts, and bona fide asylum seekers by allowing asylum officers to grant asylum in approvable cases at the time of the credible fear interview; promulgate regulations to promote more consistent implementation of existing parole criteria to ensure that credible asylum-seekers are released from detention; reconcile conflicting field guidance to require that any expression of fear at the port of entry must result in either a referral for a credible fear determination or contact with an asylum officer to speak to the alien via a telephonic interpretation service to determine whether or not the alien needs to be referred; facilitate legal assistance for asylum seekers subject to expedited removal; and implement and monitor quality assurance procedures to ensure more reliable information for homeland security purposes, and to ensure that asylum seekers are not turned away in error.
CIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal agency created to monitor religious freedom in other countries and advise the President, Secretary of State and Congress on how best to promote it.
The two key government departments in immigration matters – the DOJ and the DHS – have new leadership in the second Bush term. Former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales has become the new Attorney General, and a former DOJ official and now a Federal Judge, Michael Chertoff, is expected to be confirmed next week to head the DHS. Both have been criticized by human rights groups for helping shape post 9/11 U.S. policies on immigrant detention and prisoner abuse.
Posted by Unknown at Friday, February 11, 2005 4 comments:
LEGAL HUBRIS
Shortly before he left office, former Attorney General John Ashcroft told employees at the Department of Justice (DOJ) that America is "a freer nation than before because our families can live peacefully in their communities, our wives, daughters and mothers can travel the streets safely, and our children are turning away from illegal drugs."
But it would be difficult to convince Rodi Alvarado that she is "freer".
Mrs. Alvarado is a Guatemalan refugee who is at the center of a 10-year debate over whether battered women can successfully gain asylum in the U.S. Her case had been in the hands of Mr. Ashcroft, who said two years ago he would decide her fate. But just before he stepped down, he passed the responsibility to his successor, Alberto Gonzales, former White House Counsel.
Ashcroft decided neither to grant nor deny asylum to Alvarado. He said a decision should await new regulations from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which supervises most immigration matters. The DHS says its new regulations would make domestic abuse a valid legal basis for asylum-seekers. The government started working on such regulations many years ago, long before the DHS was created.
The DHS says it will not press for Mrs. Alvarado's deportation regardless of how much longer it may take the agency to finalize the new regulations. Meanwhile, Mrs. Alvarado remains in legal limbo. Though she can remain in the U.S., that is only a partial victory since she cannot be reunited with her children, who remain in Guatemala.
Mrs. Alvarado's husband, a former soldier in the Guatemalan military, brutally beat her over a period of 10 years while the Guatemalan police and courts ignored her repeated attempts to get help. When she ran away, her husband found her and beat her unconscious. Finally, in 1995, she fled to the U.S. in search of safety. She now works as a housekeeper at a convent in San Francisco.
Mrs. Alvarado's case has created a firestorm of bipartisan criticism of U.S. Government immigration policies. Advocates for women and immigration rights had hoped Alvarado's situation would already have led to a change in U.S. policy to recognize asylum cases filed by victims of domestic violence. Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno proposed such a change in her final hours in office in 2001.
With the change in administrations and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the proposal languished. Opponents have said new asylum rules would lead to a surge in claims, an assertion disputed by advocates.
Under U.S. law, asylum applicants have to show they can't go home because they face persecution because of religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The regulation proposed by Reno would have allowed battered women to be considered members of a social group.
The Harvard Law School's Immigration and Refugee Clinic Women's Refugee Project, which filed a 'friend of the court' brief in the Alvarado case, said, "While we are disappointed that Attorney General Ashcroft did not follow the full recommendation of the Department of Homeland Security, and grant Mrs. Alvarado permanent asylum as he absolutely should have, we are encouraged that a basic regulatory framework -- at least in proposed form -- has been established which may allow for a principled approach to this issue." Nancy Kelly and Deborah Anker of Harvard said in a joint statement. "It is critical that women victims of violence be treated fairly and evenhandedly under U.S. law."
A coalition of organizations signed the Women Refugees Project's amicus brief and have supported Alvarado's efforts to obtain asylum. These organizations include the Center for Refugee Studies, Human Rights First and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, as well as Amnesty International-USA, the National Immigration, the Project of the National Lawyers Guild, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women & Children, and the Women's Division of Human Rights Watch.
The Refugee Project says there is broad, bipartisan support for granting asylum to Alvarado, including from many conservative organizations and Republican
officeholders such as Concerned Women for America, World Relief, and U.S.
Republican Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine.
Mrs. Alvarado's case could well be complicated by political environment created by the ongoing congressional controversy over immigration and asylum. Last week, the House of Representatives passed the so-called REAL I.D. act. The bill would block states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, restrict asylum , and complete a controversial border fence between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. The White House said in a policy statement issued hours before debate began that the bill would "strengthen the ability of the United States to protect against terrorist entry into and activities within the United States."
But immigration advocates, groups supporting civil and privacy rights, and state government organizations opposed the bill. They said it would make it harder for those fleeing persecution to seek asylum in this country and would endanger public safety and national security by denying driver's licenses to millions of illegal immigrants.
OUR SECRET GOVERNMENT
From Washington this week came more evidence that the Bush Administration has no plans to change its excessive secrecy policies. The U.S Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) removed more than 20 significant documents from its website, and the Justice Department (DOJ) told an advocacy group it will cost them nearly $400,000 to obtain records they requested about immigrants detained after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Documents removed from the USCCR's website include a number of reports that could embarrass the Bush Administration. For example: Briefing on Boundaries of Justice: Immigration Policies Post-September 11; Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, and North Dakota Post-September 11; Briefing on the Consequences of Government Race Data Collection Bans on Civil Rights; and The Supreme Court Revisits Affirmative Action.
A majority of commissioners on the USCCR voted along party lines to remove the documents. The USCCR is a government agency. Of its seven commissioners, four are chosen by the President (currently Republicans) and three (currently two Democrats and one Independent) by Congress. Its mandate is to investigate complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin; study and collect information relating to discrimination or a denial of equal protection of the laws under the Constitution because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice; appraise federal laws and policies with respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice; and serve as a national clearinghouse for information in respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws.
In another secrecy-related development, an advocacy group, People for the American Way (PAW) requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), all documents related to the decision to seal the records of immigrants detained in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. PAW believes the unusually large price tag is DOJ's latest move in an ongoing struggle to withhold the information.
The civil rights organization filed the FOIA request more than a year ago. The Justice Department immediately denied the request on the grounds of privacy and then denied the organization's appeal. PAW, unsatisfied with the Justice Department's claims, filed a lawsuit in August 2004 seeking the records.
Two days before the deadline for arguing why the lawsuit should be summarily denied, the Justice Department reported that it had changed its position and would search for the requested records. PAW was told that an initial canvass of U.S. Attorneys' offices led to an estimated search time of 13,314 hours. at $28 an hour, would make the total search fee approximately $373,000.
PAW requested the information so it could produce a public report about the
government's efforts to use secrecy against hundreds of unidentified detainees
who were arrested and held for months without criminal charges following the
9/11 attacks.
Between 9/11 and the present time, some 5,000 people – mostly Arabs, other Muslims, and South Asians, have been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), part of the DOJ. There have been no terrorist-related convictions. Most of the detainees were held in a prison system operated by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Many were held without charge or access to family or attorneys for months. Many were deported for typically minor visa violations, and some were returned to countries where they would likely be arrested and imprisoned by local security authorities. The DOJ has consistently refused to release the names of the detainees.
One of the architects of the post 9/11 detention policy was President Bush's lawyer, Alberto Gonzales, who was recently confirmed to be the next Attorney General. Another former DOJ official, Judge Michael Chertoff, is thought to have been a key player in designing the policy; he has been nominated by President Bush to be the next heads of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the immigration prison system.
PAW said it hopes to publish a report about government secrecy efforts against hundreds of unidentified detainees.
The organization's president, Ralph G. Neas, said the DOJ's fee demand is "outrageous, and another in a series of strategies to deny access to public information. Apparently, they've taken the 'free' out of 'Freedom of Information.' If you want to learn about secret trials carried out by your government with your money, you're going to need deep pockets," said Neas.
"It's clear that this is just the latest tactic in the Justice Department's ongoing effort to hide information from the American public, particularly about 'secret' legal proceedings for immigrants held for months and sometimes years in the wake of the terrorist attacks," said Neas.
In an editorial, The New York Times said the DOJ was charging a "huge fee (that) is well beyond established criteria and amounts to an insult to intent of Freedom of Information Act". The FOIA was signed in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and was intended to give citizens more access to government documents.
PAW's request was prompted by the secret case of a Deerfield Beach, Fla., resident, Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel, an Algerian native and one of hundreds of men of Middle East origin detained without criminal charge by federal agents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Bellahouel, a waiter, was detained by FBI agents for overstaying his student visa after they learned he'd probably served food to some of the hijackers and may have been seen going into a movie theater with a hijacker.
He spent five months in custody and was called to testify before the grand jury that indicted accused Sept. 11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. He was released in March 2002, without any criminal charge. But his habeas case proceeded secretly for another year until it was mistakenly placed on the docket at the appellate court in Miami.
While he was still in custody, in January 2002, Bellahouel filed a habeas corpus case in The Southern District of Florida. The case proceeded in complete secrecy on orders of U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck. A clerk's error at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2003 briefly let Bellahouel's name surface, allowing a newspaper to discover his case. Now, Bellahouel's name appears nowhere on the Southern District's public docket.
Last year, PAW joined a coalition formed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, including 23 media, law and public interest organizations -- including the New York Times and American Lawyer Media, the Daily Business Review's parent, that unsuccessfully sought to formally intervene in Bellahouel's heavily censored case, which was then before the Supreme Court for possible review. The Daily Business Review is the newspaper that discovered the error made by the court clerk.
Lebanon's Fragmentation Will Ricochet Against Syria
The article below was written by Michael Young, Opinion Editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. It is reproduced here with permission of the author.
By Michael Young
The cruelest punishment inflicted on postwar Lebanese society has been that unarmed citizens must frequently listen to the likes of pro-Syrian parliamentarian Nasser Qandil. Last week he was joined in the oratorical catacombs by Prime Minister Omar Karami, who blithely accused the opposition of being on the foreign payroll.
This theme was picked up on Monday, when a gaggle of politicians went to Ain al-Tineh to pledge allegiance to Syria, under the portentous gaze of the host, Parliament Speaker Nabih Birri, for once not condemned to playing runner-up as he was flanked by Karami and Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. Birri said the opposition "was not guiltless of outside interference," while Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh, also Monday, blamed the opposition because it called "for the implementation of the same demands as Israel."
This resort to the basest norms of Stalinism was instructive. It suggested that Syria's friends in Lebanon have fallen back to their last rhetorical retrenchments. Birri ignored an irony: the "outside interference" he referred to was that of the United Nations Security Council, whose Resolution 425 demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon he rode to political prominence ages ago. Surely he could have done better than display double standards to make his point.
As for Franjieh, his charge that the opposition and Israel had parallel interests implied obligatory collaboration. Yet Franjieh's grandfather once fought the Palestinians even as the Israelis did; no one would accuse him of being an Israeli agent. Nor is it clear that Israel seeks an end to Syria's military role in Lebanon. A few months ago Israeli National Security Adviser Giora Eiland even suggested the opposite, warning that a Syrian withdrawal might allow Hizbullah to escalate conflict on Israel's northern border. The Israeli government rebuffed him, but the reasoning was probably more widespread than anyone cared to admit.
There was a revealing moment last week when Syria's deputy foreign minister, Walid Moallem, was asked about the possibility of a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. He sidestepped an answer by saying the matter was better discussed in the joint Lebanese-Syrian military committee. He thus undermined his own authority as a valid interlocutor with the Lebanese by reconfirming that, in relations between Beirut and Damascus, Syrian security officials still made the decisions.
The Syrians are enforcing order on the Lebanese scene, pistol in hand, though they never actually bothered with dialogue. When there was doubt as to whether Prime Minister Rafik Hariri would endorse an extension of President Emile Lahoud's mandate, he was, to quote Walid Jumblatt recently at St. Joseph's University, "made an offer he couldn't refuse, like in that scene from 'The Godfather.'" On his own account, Marwan Hamade learned a similar lesson (minus the offer) soon afterward, when persons yet unidentified tried to murder him.
The latest chapter in this dismal descent into B-movie politics was the round of statements by officials accusing the opposition of assured, yet strangely unproven and unprosecuted, subversion. The bitter exchanges prompted Jumblatt to go further than he ever had when he accused "the debris of the Baath of having, in the name of Arabism, killed Kamal Jumblatt."
Even Michel Aoun, so infuriatingly wary of his brethren in opposition, understood that he had been played for a fool with the bait of a Lebanese homecoming - transformed by Justice Minister Adnan Addoum into an assurance of arrest after the opposition demanded a full Syrian withdrawal last week. That leaves Aoun with few options but to join the Bristol grouping, or else guarantee fragmentation of the front uniting Syria's critics.
In Damascus, the UN's special envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, was apparently made to understand (during a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa) that insistence on implementation of Resolution 1559 was having a "negative impact" on Lebanon. If true, that was an underhanded threat to turn Lebanese stability into a hostage to Syrian interests. Roed-Larsen surely got the message; he reportedly emerged from the meeting with Sharaa looking unhappy, and was initially denied an audience with President Bashar Assad, the man he tried so hard to promote as a peacemaker weeks ago on an earlier Syrian visit.
It was but a small victory for Assad, as Roed-Larsen's backhand, if Syria persists in playing hardball, is likely to be a negative report on implementation of Resolution 1559 in April. Syria earned celebrity status last week as one of the very few states U.S. President George W. Bush listed in his latest gallery of rogues. In Paris on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French President Jacques Chirac demanded that Syria implement Resolution 1559 and allow transparent Lebanese elections. So, if the Syrians believe that heightening domestic friction among its Lebanese allies and opponents is the best way of confronting this growing international impatience with, if not hostility toward, Damascus, then Assad is being as shortsighted as a former ophthalmologist dares.
The Syrians are behaving like the scorpion hitching a ride on the back of a turtle to cross the creek. Midway into the ride, the turtle, none too sure about carrying the scorpion in the first place, feels a sting and knows he's been poisoned. "Why on earth did you do that," the turtle asks, "we're both about to drown because of your stupidity." The scorpion answers, "I know, but I just couldn't help it!"
Syria can help it in Lebanon, because the alternative, namely to smash the country if it is pried from Syrian hands, is suicidal. A broken Lebanon is far more dangerous to its neighbors than an independent one. And does the Syrian regime really believe that anyone, inside Lebanon or out, will give it the time of day if its intention is to beget a Lebanese wasteland to save its own skin?
Posted by Unknown at Friday, February 11, 2005 No comments:
Lebanon's Fragmentation Will Ricochet Against Syri...