Collecting DNA From Asylum Seekers at the Border Raises Privacy Concerns

 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is collecting DNA from asylum seekers at the border, recent media reports confirm. This is the latest expansion of DNA collection as part of a program initiated under the Trump administration that targets nearly all immigrants in government custody. A growing number of noncitizens are being subjected to this invasive collection of sensitive personal information with little knowledge or understanding of how their information will be used or stored by the federal government.

While the southern border remains largely closed to asylum seekers due to the Biden administration’s continuation of the Title 42 expulsions policy, some families and particularly vulnerable individuals are being allowed to enter to pursue their claims. And it is this population that is being subjected to DNA collection as they enter the United States.

The Biden administration has continued this policy despite privacy concerns and no clear justification.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5161-Collecting-DNA-From-Asylum-Seekers-at-the-Border.html

Certain Detained Asylum Seekers Must Receive a Bond Hearing Within 7 Days

Written by Kristin Macleod-Ball 

Attorney General William Barr announced in April 2019 plans to eliminate bond hearings for immigrants who pass an asylum screening interview after entering the United States. This would have forced many people to remain incarcerated for months or years during their asylum proceedings. However, on Tuesday, a federal court recognized that this fundamental attack on due process is unconstitutional. 

A U.S. district court judge found that the government cannot lock up certain detained asylum seekers without giving a bond hearing before an immigration judge. The Seattle judge ordered that those hearings must take place within seven days of requesting one and that immigration courts must provide new legal protections at the hearings. 

This ruling comes after the Attorney General said, in a case called Matter of M-S-, that he would bar immigration courts from deciding whether to release certain asylum seekers held in immigration detention during their often-lengthy asylum proceedings. 

The district court’s recent decision in the Padilla v. ICE case protects these immigrants’ right to a bond hearing. It is set to go into effect on July 16. It applies nationwide to people who enter the United States between ports of entry, are put into a fast-tracked deportation process called expedited removal, and then pass an initial screening interview about their requests for asylum. The government is likely to ask a higher court to overturn the decision. 

In response to Tuesday’s decision, the White House issued a statement. The statement claims that the decision in Padilla would somehow “lead to the further overwhelming of our immigration system” and that amounted to the judge “[imposing] his or her open borders views on the country.” 

Unfortunately, this is merely more of the same from the Trump administration. The White House regularly sends out harmful, anti-immigrant rhetoric with no basis in fact and attacks the courts when judges uphold the Constitution. In reality, Tuesday’s decision simply protects against the Attorney General’s unlawful efforts to upend a half century of standard immigration court procedure by indefinitely and unnecessarily incarcerating asylum seekers. 

No one should be subject to arbitrary imprisonment while seeking asylum. This decision could protect many immigrants who would otherwise spend months or years locked up by the Department of Homeland Security simply because they are seeking protection in the United States.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com  

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4294-Asylum-Seekers-Must-Receive-a-Bond-Hearing-Within-7-Days.html

Appeals Court Says Asylum Seekers May Now Challenge Their Deportation in Federal Court

Written by Emma Winger

Many asylum seekers who travel to the United States seeking protection often receive something much less—they are arrested by immigration officials and provided no meaningful way to challenge their deportation in federal court. 

Last week, in Thuraissigiam v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal appeals court to say that depriving these asylum seekers of federal court review violated the U.S. Constitution. This decision adds a key level of protection for a vulnerable population currently under attack by the Trump administration. 

Because of their circumstances, asylum seekers are often unable to meet the legal requirements to enter the United States. If they lack proper documentation, they are forced into an expedited removal process. A single asylum officer decides whether their fear is credible and there is only a cursory review by an immigration judge. In Fiscal Year 2016, 41 percent of all deportations were through this expedited removal process. 

The process is deeply flawed. Immigration officers routinely violate even the minimal protections in place for asylum seekers in expedited removal proceedings. Immigration officers fail to inform migrants that they may seek asylum in the United States, do not inquire about their fear of persecution, provide inadequate interpretation, and fail to correctly record the results of the interview or explain the reasons for denying a claim. When an asylum seeker asks for review by an immigration judge, they often do not have an immigration attorney. 

Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka, faced this flawed expedited removal process. In his case, the asylum officer and immigration judge failed to follow the required procedures and failed to apply the correct legal standards when they evaluated his fear claim. He tried to challenge it in federal court, but the district court held that it could not consider Mr. Thuraissigiam’s claims under the immigration laws. 

When he appealed that decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed it, concluding that the laws limiting federal court review violated the Suspension Clause. The court explained that the Suspension Clause—part of the original Constitution and therefore pre-dating even the Bill of Rights—was designed to protect access to the courts. This vital protection, available through habeas corpus proceedings, has been accessible to non-citizens as well as citizens in the United States since its founding. 

The court concluded that Mr. Thuraissigiam and other asylum seekers who raise similar procedural challenges to the expedited removal process have the right to challenge their expedited removal process in federal court. 

Though the government could ask for an additional review from a larger group of Ninth Circuit judges or take the case to the Supreme Court, the decision in this case is significant. For now, more asylum seekers may have their day in court, securing a vital protection and giving them an opportunity to challenge a rushed deportation process. 

Fuente: http://immigrationimpact.com/

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4062-Asylum-Seekers-May-Now-Challenge-Their-Deportation-in-Federal-Court.html

Congress Members and Others Argue Against Turning Back Asylum Seekers

Written by Karolina Walters

The Trump administration’s policy of turning back asylum seekers has been devastating, as vulnerable people are repeatedly denied access to the asylum process at ports of entry (POEs) along the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Now, Members of Congress, states, organizations, and law professors are standing up to the administration by supporting a lawsuit that challenges the government’s inhumane actions. These prominent groups filed amicus briefs that collectively dismantled the government’s arguments seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, Al Otro Lado v. Nielsen. 

In the lawsuit, the organizational plaintiff Al Otro Lado, Inc. and thirteen individual plaintiffs argue that turning back asylum seekers denies them their statutory right to access the asylum process and their constitutional right to due process of law. The practice also violates U.S. obligations under international law. 

The government argues its treatment of asylum seekers is justified, maintaining it has the right to control the flow of persons at the border and that it does not have the “capacity” to process all those seeking access to the asylum process at the southern border. It also argues U.S. law does not apply to asylum seekers who were prevented from accessing the asylum process, even if they were denied access by U.S. officials mere feet from the border. 

The amicus brief filed by 77 members of Congress argued that the government’s policy violates the congressional intent behind the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The Act protects access to the asylum process and makes that access mandatory. 

It does not allow the government to deny access to the asylum process, even temporarily, based on the whims of the Executive Branch. 

The brief also provided evidence against the government’s “lack of capacity” arguments. The evidence showed U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is processing asylum seekers below their own stated capacity and that the administration has not prioritized increasing capacity in budgetary requests. 

Attorneys General from 19 states and the District of Columbia filed a second brief detailing the inhumane and traumatizing conditions faced by asylum seekers turned back from the U.S. border. The Attorneys Generals argue their states and the District welcome more than 73 percent of the asylees entering the United States and will have to divert additional resources to public schools and health systems, among other service providers, to “assist the victims of the unnecessary trauma that defendants’ Turnback Policy causes.” 

A group of immigration law professors filed another brief attacking the government’s claims that asylum seekers’ rights are determined solely by a border line drawn on a map. The law professors argue that U.S. officials act under U.S. law when they keep asylum seekers from accessing the asylum process: 

“ [T]heir very ability to exert governmental power on [asylum seekers] shows that those [asylum seekers] had reached the place where U.S. power exists… [Moreover], if U.S. power projects beyond the map line, then so too does the Constitution’s demand that the government not deprive [these individuals] of due process. ” 

Amnesty International filed a brief explaining that under international law, the United States cannot return someone to any place where they may fear for their lives. The brief outlines how the Mexican border region qualifies as such a place for asylum seekers. Five other organizations which advocate for immigrant youth, including Kids in Need of Defense, focused on the particular dangers faced by unaccompanied minors subjected to the policy. 

19 other organizations presented evidence that undermined the government’s justifications for its treatment of asylum seekers. Despite the claim of insufficient capacity to process asylum seekers, the brief included data that in October 2016, CBP processed more than twice as many individuals at POEs than in December 2018. 

“Since October 2016,” the brief states, “every field office at the U.S.-Mexico border has reported significant declines in the processing of undocumented immigrants. ” 

It asserts that the real motivation behind the government’s policy is not a lack of capacity, but rather “blatant animus toward immigrants, particularly those from Latin America, and a desire to deter current and future migrants from seeking asylum in the United States.” 

These six diverse briefs share a common theme: the law and the facts do not justify, or even support, the government’s turn backs of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

 

 

Source: http://immigrationimpact.com/

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4034-argue-rejection-against-asylum-seekers.html