On September 22, 2018, the Trump Administration released proposed harmful changes to the “public charge” rule. These changes would strongly raise new high barriers for prospective lawful permanent residents if they are poor or have used government benefits like Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), Medicare’s Part D with prescription medication costs for seniors, or housing subsidies.
TAKE ACTION
DONATE TO THESE ORGANIZATIONS:
CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY
CONTACT YOUR LAWMAKERS IN CONGRESS:
Ask Them To:
- RESTORE ASYLUM NOW!
- END THE MIGRATION PROTECTION PROTOCOLS “MPP” PROGRAM
- SUPPORT PRO-ASYLUM LEGISLATION, INCLUDING THE “ASYLUM SEEKER PROTECTION ACT” (currently in committee in the House of Representatives)
PRO TIP: Contact your lawmakers through their local district office. Constituent relations is their top priority!
MOBILIZE ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
- Follow, Learn, Share and Post #RestoreAsylumNow
- Follow HILSC @HTXImmigration to learn more about our work, connect with our partners and access more information about how immigration law and policy impact the Houston area
GET INVOLVED IN LOCAL ACTION:
On or before Tuesday February 25th, contact the Harris County Commissioners Court to voice your support for the creation of a legal defense fund for individuals facing deportation
On November 9, 2018, the Trump Administration issued an interim final rule and presidential proclamation seeking to ban refugees from obtaining asylum if they cross the southern border between official ports of entry. A federal court in California promptly issued a temporary restraining order suspending this asylum ban, following a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This policy is cruel, unnecessary, and illegal. It has life or death consequences for families and individuals who are fleeing violence, desperation, and persecution. Asylum is a form of protection our government may grant to someone fleeing their country because they fear they will be harmed based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Seeking asylum is protected within U.S. and international law.
How To Write Your Comment
State Your Opposition in your own words. Each comment should be unique, so be sure to add some addition language to your comment, should you use to copy some of the sample reasons to oppose the regulation, below:
- The regulation violates U.S. law and international treaty obligations. Seeking asylum is protected within U.S. and international law (Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention).
- The rule unfairly penalizes refugees in need of protection because of how they enter the United States. This rule is another building block in this administration’s unprecedented assault on asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border. The administration is attempting to deny refugees asylum in the U.S. just because they crossed the border between ports of entry, despite the fact that there are many legitimate reasons why asylum seekers do not go to official crossing points.
- The regulation could leave refugees fleeing persecution without protection. The alternative fear-based protections to asylum are much more difficult to obtain than asylum, as they have more stringent requirements.
- Alternative forms of legal protection are insufficient. The alternative fear-based protections are inadequate substitutes to asylum as they do not offer the same protections as asylum and would leave people vulnerable to family separation, removal to third countries, and subject to barriers to education and work.
- The rule upends protections Congress created for unaccompanied children seeking asylum. The law requires that asylum officers, rather than immigration judges, first hear the cases of unaccompanied children so that they can recount the sensitive and often traumatic facts of their claims in a non-adversarial setting. (William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, TVPRA).
- This policy is cruel, unnecessary, and illegal. It has life or death consequences for families and individuals who are fleeing violence, desperation, and persecution.
The Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative (HILSC) condemns the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Migration Protection Protocols,” which were announced on December 20, 2018 by DHS Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen. Under the Protocols, individuals who arrive from Mexico and request asylum may be returned to Mexico while their immigration proceedings take place in the United States.
DHS’s new policy is based on a number of faulty premises. In her statement, Secretary Nielsen cites a statistic that nine out of ten asylum claims are not granted by an immigration judge. This is simply erroneous. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), based at Syracuse University, in FY 2018 thirty-five percent of asylum cases heard by an immigration judge were approved.
Additionally, as HILSC member organizations know well, the vast majority of denied asylum claims are denied either because the client does not have a good immigration attorney or because the applicant does not qualify under immigration law. Pathways for legal immigration, and particularly asylum, have been systematically narrowed by the Trump Administration, despite the fact that applicants are in very real fear for their lives and the lives and safety of their family members. Simply put, the vast majority of asylum claims, even those that are eventually denied, are not fraudulent. This policy will force asylum-seekers to remain in a vulnerable situation in Mexico.
Furthermore, this policy will make it virtually impossible for asylum-seekers to access legal assistance. In her statement, Secretary Nielson says that applicants will have access to immigration attorneys, but provides no information on how this will be accomplished. Asylum-seekers do not have the right to appointed counsel. However, whether or not an asylum-seeker is represented by counsel is one of the biggest factors in whether an applicant’s claim will be approved. Most US immigration attorneys will not be able to travel to Mexico to meet with clients. It will be extremely difficult for asylum-seekers to gather the evidence they need to support their cases from Mexico and with a limited ability to communicate with their attorneys. Asylum-seekers have due process rights in immigration proceedings, including the right to an attorney and the right to present evidence, and DHS’s new policy will prevent asylum-seekers from exercising those rights.
The Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative stands with asylum-seekers and refugees in opposition to this action by the Trump Administration. We urge Houstonians to speak out against these policies by calling their members of Congress. Individuals, including attorneys, can volunteer with our partner organizations. We also welcome donations supporting legal representation for asylum seekers in the greater Houston region.
The Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative was formed in 2013 to address the lack of legal services capacity in the Houston region. Collaborative members include Houston non-profit legal services providers, outreach and advocacy organizations, the business community, law school legal clinics, public agencies, and private foundations. The mission of the Collaborative is to create a coordinated network of effective and efficient services to assist low-income immigrants access the information and legal representation that allows them to make choices in their own best interest.
On November 9, President Trump issued a proclamation that places severe restrictions on individuals seeking asylum through the southern border of the United States.
Trump Administration moves to bar migrants from seeking asylum
Houston’s legal community is gravely concerned about the consequences of the latest efforts to shred asylum law, a critical pathway to legal immigration
Today, President Trump issued a final rule and presidential proclamation that places severe restrictions on individuals seeking asylum through the southern border of the United States. In so doing, the Administration is effectively shutting down asylum as a pathway for legal immigration for many immigrants. Under current U.S. law, anyone newly arriving or who has been in the United States for less than one year can ask for asylum if they have a fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
This marks another executive action attacking refugees and asylum seekers, following the precedent set by the 2017 Muslim Ban and decreasing the number of admitted refugees to a mere 30,000 per year. The Administration is relying on the same authority to bar immigrants from Muslim-majority countries as justification for this new rule.
Andrea Guttin, Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative’s Legal Director said:
The President is trying side-step our laws which allow anyone on U.S. soil to seek asylum when they fear they will be threatened, harmed, or killed because of who they are or what they believe. The Administration has tasked itself with dismantling asylum law since it came into power. The President is using the caravan as a scare tactic to justify his long-standing agenda to close our border to the most vulnerable. This new proclamation will lead to mothers, fathers, and children whose lives are in danger being turned away, despite our country’s moral and legal obligation to provide refuge.
American asylum law recognizes not everyone can come to a border crossing point, such as bridge or another “port of entry,” in order to seek asylum. As such, our laws permit anyone in the country to seek asylum – regardless of how they enter. Alarmingly, however, border officers have used threats, lies, and outright denials to keep out asylum seekers who do exactly what the President is asking them to do: ask for refuge at a port of entry. The government’s own Ombudsman investigated and reported earlier this summer that asylum-seekers have been turned back at the arriving port of entry, leading some “who would otherwise seek legal entry into the United States to cross the border illegally.”
Lauren Fisher-Flores, an immigration attorney with the Tahirih Justice Center who is currently in Mexico City providing consultations to adults and children in the caravan, said:
Yesterday, we met a significant number of transgender women, pregnant women, and children traveling without their parents, many of whom appear to be eligible for asylum based on their past persecution. We met people fleeing violence, including a police officer, his wife and two children who were threatened by his own colleagues and the gangs for refusing to join a corruption scheme; a gay man who has suffered years of persecution because of his sexuality; and a transgendered couple who have been shot at and threatened. This group is representative of many migrants seeking asylum in the United States and deserve the protections of our established laws.
In addition to limiting the number of people eligible for asylum, this proclamation paves the way for the prolonged, indefinite detention of asylum seekers. Increased detention further traumatizes those fleeing persecution and makes it more difficult to access legal representation and community support. The only beneficiaries of indefinite detention are private prison companies and the President’s political agenda.
Julie Pasch, Managing Attorney with HILSC’s Deportation Defense Houston, a project that provides legal representation to immigrants in four Houston-area detention centers, said:
It is difficult to win an asylum case because asylum law is extraordinarily complex and it nearly impossible to navigate the immigration court process alone. The Administration is using the fact that many asylum claims end up being ‘non-meritorious’ as justification for this policy change, but in fact, the two biggest factors determining whether an asylum claim is granted by an immigration judge is whether the person is represented and whether they are in immigration detention. Asylum-seekers who are detained and not represented by an attorney win their cases only about four percent of the time.
The Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative stands with asylum-seekers and refugees in opposition to this action by the Trump Administration. We urge Houstonians to speak out against these policies by calling their members of Congress. Individuals, including attorneys, can volunteer with our partner organizations. We also welcome donations supporting legal representation for asylum seekers in the greater Houston region.