Tahirih Files Lawsuit Challenging the Use of CBP to Conduct Credible Fear Interviews

by Tahirih Justice Center

Washington, D.C. - April 2, 2020 - (The Ponder News) -- The Tahirih Justice Center filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the use of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents to screen asylum seekers for their ‘credible fear’ of persecution. This policy change violates federal immigration law and was enacted by officials who did not have the authority to do so. The lawsuit is filed on behalf of women and children currently detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley. Tahirih has also sought information on this clandestine policy through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to compel the government to release records on this troubling practice.

“Credible fear interviews are supposed to be the non-adversarial, first step in the extensive asylum process, in which asylum seekers who have experienced severe violence recount intimate details of their persecution. For decades, these interviews have been conducted by asylum officers, specially trained to work with individuals who have experienced trauma,” said Julie Carpenter, Tahirih Senior Litigation Counsel. “Using Border Patrol—federal law enforcement officers whose mission is to capture and detain immigrants—to conduct these immediate interviews intentionally puts the fate of survivors of gender-based violence, and other asylum seekers, in the hands of agents who lack the necessary expertise in asylum law.”

Statement Of Northern Border Shelters On US And Mexico Policy To Restrict Asylum

by: Kino Border Initiative

Washington, D.C. - April 10, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- The Following is a statement from Kino Border Inititative:

"We at KBI and other Mexican border shelters express our concern about and opposition to the "Migration Protection Protocols," which would force the vulnerable individuals that we serve to remain in limbo and in danger in Mexico while they await months or years for an asylum decision in the United States."

CVT Asks Kids “Should we help asylum seekers?” In New Digital Ad

by Center for Victims of Torture

St. Paul, MN - February 26, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- A new digital ad from the Center for Victims of TortureTM (CVT) strips away the rhetoric surrounding asylum and features children answering a simple but powerful question: Should we help asylum seekers?

Created and written by CVT and produced by Emergence Pictures, Inc., the ad is running until June on Facebook and will also be posted to CVT’s Twitter and Instagram platforms. The children in the ad are not actors, had no prior knowledge of what they would be asked and did not work from a script. The ad captures their genuine responses to a question many adults struggle to answer in this day and age. CVT’s ad is intended to challenge viewers to rethink preconceived notions about asylum seekers.

“The right to seek asylum is not complicated, but the politics surrounding it can be, as we’re reminded with each new attempt by this administration to weaken or shut down the U.S. asylum system,” said Curt Goering, CVT’s executive director. “Our new ad was created to get to the heart of why people seek asylum: safety. We know that as many as 44 percent of refugees, asylees and asylum-seekers living in the United States are torture survivors, and safety is paramount to healing. The straightforward, unbiased and un-coached responses from the children in our ad represent the very essence of our message: Asylum seekers need our help. We should help them. Period.

“For more than 33 years, CVT has rebuilt the lives and restored the hope of tens of thousands of refugee and asylum-seeking torture survivors and their families, and we have had the honor to witness remarkable healing among our clients when access to safety and rehabilitative care is available. We have also seen the heartbreaking results of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what it means to seek asylum. CVT has and will continue to educate about refugee and asylum issues and to dispel the myths about who refugees and asylum seekers really are. This ad is just one example of CVT striving to engage as many people as possible in order to dispel these myths.”

The Center for Victims of Torture is a nonprofit organization headquartered in St. Paul, MN, with offices in Atlanta, GA, and Washington, D.C.; and healing initiatives in Africa and the Middle East.

BROOKS APPLAUDS PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ACTION TO REDUCE ASYLUM FRAUD AND SECURE OUR BORDERS

Washington, D.C. - November 13, 2018 - (The Ponder News) -- Friday, Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-05) praised President Trump’s Presidential Proclamation Addressing Mass Migration Through the Southern Border of the United States [1] and Department of Homeland Security’s newly released asylum rule.

Congressman Brooks said, “Each year, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens furtively thumb their noses at America’s sovereignty by clandestinely violating our borders and laws. Now, Central American caravans openly and brazenly seek to do the same. This outrageous conduct cannot be, and should not be, tolerated by America. As a sovereign nation, the American people have every right to expect their government to secure our borders.”

Brooks continued, “Illegal immigration hurts American workers and taxpayers. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal aliens are a net $116 billion annual cost to American taxpayers.[2] That’s $300 in additional taxes each man, woman and child in America is forced to pay for people whose first act on American soil is to violate American law.”

Brooks concluded, “Fraud and abuse plague America’s asylum system. Let me make this clear: no one has a right to demand asylum from any nation. Asylum and sanctuary is a discretionary benefit given by nations to those with clear justification.[3] Too often, illegal aliens are coached by attorneys to say ‘magic words’ that help them take advantage of America’s generosity. Their exploitation of America’s already generous immigration laws must stop! As such, I support President Trump’s steps to close asylum loopholes and stop the damage to America caused by illegal aliens’ wrongful conduct.”

Key information on illegal immigration and asylum:



• So far in FY18, 500,000 people apprehended attempting to cross the border, about 100,000 at checkpoints and 400,000 in the interior.[4]

• According to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, “[i]n recent weeks, United States officials have each day encountered an average of approximately 2,000 inadmissible aliens at the southern border.”[5]

• According to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, “[o]ver the past decade, the overall percentage of aliens subject to expedited removal and referred, as part of the initial screening process, for a credible-fear interview jumped from approximately 5% to above 40%, and the total number of credible-fear referrals for interviews increased from about 5,000 a year in Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2008 to about 97,000 in FY 2018.”[6]

• Last year, nearly half of the completed cases that involved aliens who claimed credible fear resulted in the alien failing to show up at a hearing or even to file an application for asylum. [7]

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-addressing-mass-migration-southern-border-united-states/

[2] Federation for Immigration Reform: “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers”, by Matt O’Brien and Spencer Raley, September 27, 2017.

[3] See INA 208(b)(1)(A), 8 U.S.C. 1158(b)(1)(A) (the “Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General may grant asylum to an alien” who applies in accordance with the required procedures and meets the definition of a “refugee”);

[4] U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Southwest Border Migration Fy2018;

[5] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/09/2018-24594/aliens-subject-to-a-bar-on-entry-under-certain-presidential-proclamations-procedures-for-protection;

[6] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/09/2018-24594/aliens-subject-to-a-bar-on-entry-under-certain-presidential-proclamations-procedures-for-protection; see also https://cis.org/sites/default/files/2018-09/EOIR_Credible%20Fear_USCIS%20Proceedings%20Table.pdf

[7] Id.