The New CBP One App May Put Immigrants and Travelers’ Privacy at Risk

 

It is unquestionable that technology creates efficiencies. But efficiency should not come at the total expense of privacy. A new app from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) toes that line between productivity and the need for users’ privacy.

In October 2020, CBP launched a new mobile application to help process individuals entering the United States. The CBP One mobile app has three known functions:

• Merchants can use it to make appointments for cargo inspection.
• Foreign travelers can apply for an arrival and departure record and use its GPS to document their entry and exit from the United States.
• Organizations in Mexico may use it to verify whether individuals are enrolled in the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program.

Though the app’s efficiencies may seem obvious at first glance,

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5208-CBP-One-App-May-Put-Immigrants-Privacy-at-Risk.html

Immigration Agencies’ Intrusive Searches Of Cell Phones, Laptops Are Ruled Unconstitutional

By Emma Winger

A federal court ruled this week that sweeping policies permitting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to search personal cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices without reasonable suspicion are unconstitutional.

The policies that the court rejected authorized CBP and ICE officers to search the contents of electronic devices of people arriving at U.S. borders, including U.S. airports, without reasonable suspicion that those devices might have evidence of illegal activity and without a court order. Immigration officers could randomly search the cell phones and laptops of anyone arriving in the United States, including U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

In Alasaad v. McAleenan, ten U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident challenged these policies, arguing, in part, that they violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On Tuesday, the court agreed.

More information...

 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4626-search-the-cell-phones-and-laptops-of-anyone-arriving.html

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

New Process In El Paso Seeks To Deport Asylum Seekers In Less Than 10 Days

By Katie Shepherd

The Trump administration began a secretive new asylum process in El Paso, Texas that came to light late last week. It seeks to deter asylum seekers from coming to the United States and to remove them as quickly as possible once they’re here.

The process—dubbed the “Prompt Asylum Claim Review” or “PACR”—condenses the asylum process from several months or more to under 10 days. It is riddled with due process concerns and will likely result in countless individuals’ deportation to imminent harm. Media reports indicate that the program is being piloted in El Paso and is a joint initiative between the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.

Under PACR, individuals apprehended in the El Paso area are kept in holding cells (known in Spanish as hieleras) or are taken to a local 1,500-bed soft-sided facility operated by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

They are given 24 hours to make a phone call to an attorney or otherwise prepare for their case before having an interview with an asylum officer. The officer will decide whether they have a credible fear of persecution if returned to the country they fled.

Many asylum seekers being processed at the border are subjected to the asylum transit ban, which blocks asylum eligibility for those who traveled through another country before reaching the United States. As a result, Central Americans are especially impacted by the ban. They are only eligible for a more limited form of relief (withholding of removal) under a heightened fear screening standard that is much harder to meet.

Those who fail these screening interviews may have their case reviewed via telephone by an immigration judge. The judge conducts a cursory review of the case.

Even if someone can secure a lawyer within 24 hours, they are unable to meet with them in person at the facility. CBP does not permit attorneys to physically access the facilities. Detainees only have limited access to phone calls.

Individuals seeking asylum will remain in CBP custody during their credible fear interview. This is a big departure from previous procedures. Typically, individuals only spend a few days in CBP custody before being transferred to a detention center operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

CBP facilities are notorious for their terrible conditions and have long been the subject of litigation. The facilities are designed to hold individuals only for short-term stays. Government guidance advises that individuals be held for no longer than 72 hours—far less than the 10 days called for under PACR.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks exposing these substandard conditions and inadequate access to medical care. This is particularly concerning, since those subject to the program include families with young children and infants.

The obstacles set before asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border—and El Paso in particular—are almost insurmountable. Individuals placed in PACR must secure counsel within 24 hours, endure deplorable conditions for days in CBP custody, and meet a much higher legal standard than before.

This pilot process is yet another example of the Trump administration setting up asylum seekers to fail. The program entirely disregards due process for those who the asylum system was specifically designed to protect.

 

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4571-New-Process-Seeks-To-Deport-Asylum-Seekers.html

Chaos And Dysfunction At The Border: Remain In Mexico Program

By Aaron Reichlin-Melnick www.immigrationimpact.com

The first thing many people forcibly returned to Mexico tell you is that they’re afraid. Afraid of the cartels, afraid of Mexican immigration officials, and afraid of the months of uncertainty. This is what they’ve faced since the Trump administration sent them back to Mexico as part of the “Remain in Mexico” program—formally called the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP).

Last week, I visited El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico to witness the effects of MPP firsthand. What I saw was chaos, dysfunction, and a policy that has removed what little remaining due process protections existed in immigration court.

Under MPP, individuals who cross the border or arrive at ports of entry are given a notice to appear in immigration court and then sent back to Mexico through a port of entry. Only Mexicans, unaccompanied children, and “vulnerable” individuals are excluded from the program. But that hasn’t stopped U.S. Customs and Border Protection from forcing back extremely pregnant women and vulnerable LGBT+ individuals.

In Ciudad Juárez, those subject to MPP are largely waiting in a network of private and publicly operated shelters. Although some lucky few have managed to obtain jobs and alternate housing, most people subject to MPP will spend the next several months confined to small, crowded spaces because they are too afraid to leave the shelter.

Kidnappings, assaults, rapes, and murders are routine in Ciudad Juárez, and most everyone I talked to had either been victimized themselves or knew someone who had been.

With over 42,000 people sent back across the border under MPP since the program began in January 2019, MPP has rapidly become the most effective tool in the Trump administration’s efforts to stop asylum seekers from coming to the United States. When individuals are sent back under MPP, they are required to wait in Mexico until the date of their next court hearing. This can often take months. I talked to some people in Ciudad Juárez who were sent back in June 2019 and still hadn’t had their first court hearings.

If people survive the wait, they must return to the port of entry on the day of their hearing. They are then taken by armed guards to the nearest immigration court for a hearing.

Those subject to MPP will likely have to go through this process three or four times at a minimum before their case is resolved. Those who are actually able to file for asylum—likely only a small number, given that barely one percent of people subject to MPP have found lawyers—will wait even longer. It will likely take six months to a year for a resolution of their case. Throughout this whole time, they remain vulnerable in Mexico.

When I visited the El Paso immigration court, I was told that more than 15,000 people had been returned to Mexico from the El Paso region alone.

This massive swell of new cases has overwhelmed the small El Paso Immigration Court, which in 2018 saw just 1,464 new cases filed. The court only has four judges, which means that each judge has been assigned thousands of MPP cases.

Despite the small size of the court, judges have been forced to take on hundreds of cases a day. On one of the days I visited the court, a single judge had been assigned 161 cases total on her morning and afternoon dockets. By the end of the day, she had been unable to complete all the cases and was forced to send some people back to Mexico without any movement on their cases.

The sheer size of the MPP docket has also crowded out observers from the El Paso Court. Despite waiting all day at the court, I was told I was not allowed to observe any of the supposedly public hearings. They needed every available seat in the courtroom for individuals subject to MPP. This has plunged the court in El Paso into a state of secrecy, making it virtually impossible to track what’s happening in hearings.

Despite the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, there is no sign that the Trump administration is planning to reverse course on MPP. In the next few weeks, tents housing MPP “immigration courts” are set to open in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, where tens of thousands of new cases will begin. And until a court or Congress steps in, the chaos, dysfunction, and harm caused by this program will continue.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4468-Chaos-and-Dysfunction-Remain-in-Mexico-Program.html

Investigation Demanded As Medical Care For Detained Immigrant Children Worsens

By Katy Murdza www.immigrationimpact.com

Border Patrol agents placed a detained 9-year-old girl with a kidney disease at high risk of a urinary tract infection by not allowing her to shower or change her underwear for five days. Agents also denied a 3-year-old medical care after she vomited 10 times in an hour. Agents failed to schedule a doctor’s appointment for a 2-year-old with diarrhea so severe his desperate mother had to change his diaper every 15 minutes. Other Border Patrol agents told a family that no detained children will see a doctor unless they have a fever.

Now, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—Border Patrol’s parent agency—is being held accountable for these and other accounts of inadequate medical care for children held in its custody. The American Immigration Council and American Immigration Lawyers Association filed an administrative complaint on Wednesday with the FBI and two oversight branches of the Department of Homeland Security calling attention to these incidents.

The complaint includes excerpts from firsthand accounts of 200 asylum-seeking mothers about the inadequate care they received while held in CBP facilities. Each mother was later transferred with her child from CBP custody to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where their statements were collected.

Taken together, the testimonies show the consistent denial of medical care and unsafe conditions at CBP facilities:

• 67% of mothers stated that their child was not seen at all by a medical provider while in CBP custody, beyond a check for lice.
• 58% of the women who requested medical care for their child reported that they received no medical attention.
• 48% reported being detained with their child for longer than three days, in violation of CBP’s own guidelines.

Parents frequently report sleeping on cement floors for days with 24-hour light and noise. They often say their children’s health deteriorated in CBP custody without access to medical care, while they were forced to remain cold and wet with only thin mylar blankets.

CBP has repeatedly failed to follow even the very low standards that currently regulate its detention conditions.

The 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement requires that any facility holding children be “safe and sanitary,” but 22 years later, the government routinely violates its terms.

In 2017, Federal Judge Dolly Gee determined that the government was violating the agreement by failing to provide children adequate food, water, and basic hygiene items. In August 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision.

In July 2019, DHS’ Office of the Inspector General issued a management alert about “dangerous overcrowding” in the Rio Grande Valley Processing centers. The report revealed inadequate access to showers, changes of clothing, and hot meals. 31% of the children in the inspected facilities were there longer than 72 hours.

The consequence of being held in these substandard conditions can be devastating for children. At least seven immigrant children have died in government custody since last year.

According to Dr. Julie Linton, co-chair of the immigrant health special interest group at the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“Children are not like adults. They get sick more quickly and each hour of delay can be associated with serious complications, especially in cases of infectious diseases. Delays can lead to death.”

As the complaint demands, CBP must improve conditions and medical care in processing facilities. CBP agents who interact with children need to have child welfare experience. They should be trained to screen for medical issues and refer children to medical experts. Finally, all children should be released as quickly as possible, with an absolute maximum of 72 hours in CBP custody.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4453-Detained-Immigrant-Children-Worsens.html

US Citizens Caught In Immigration Dragnet As Enforcement Gets More Aggressive

 

By Walter Ewing

There is a disturbing trend in aggressive immigration enforcement that is appearing more and more recently: the detention of U.S. citizens. There are clear indications that U.S. immigration agents are locking up people they assume must be non-citizens, but who are in fact U.S. citizens.

These abuses transcend any presidential administration. But there are indications that the Trump administration has been particularly aggressive in detaining and then challenging U.S.-born individuals about their citizenship status. According to a report released in July that analyzes ICE enforcement data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), there has been a striking increase in the number of U.S. citizens “encountered” by ICE during the Trump years. 

In the first year after President Trump took office, ICE encountered 27,540 U.S. citizens. In comparison, during the last year of the Obama administration, ICE encountered 5,940 U.S. citizens. This trend suggests that some U.S. citizens who may “appear deportable” in the eyes of some U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have become increasingly vulnerable to immigration enforcement in recent years. 

Consider three recent examples: 

• In March 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers detained a 9-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen for 32 hours without her parents present. The girl lives in Tijuana and crosses the border every day to get to and from school in the United States. On this particular day, a CBP officer decided that she didn’t resemble the photo in her passport and detained her. Why it took nearly a day and a half to verify her U.S. citizenship and release her is unclear.
• Throughout June and July 2019, an 18-year-old U.S.-citizen was detained for 23 days by CBP. He wasn’t given a chance to show officials his U.S. birth certificate until he was transferred to ICE custody—although even that didn’t immediately get him out of detention. He described conditions in the CBP facility as so bad that he considered allowing himself to be deported to Mexico just to get out.
• A Marine veteran with PTSD was held by ICE for three days in Michigan in December 2018. He was briefly being held in jail for an altercation at a hospital when ICE requested that he be turned over to them for removal from the country.

Incidents such as this are not limited to the Trump administration. For instance, a U.S. citizen in New York was detained by ICE for two years beginning in 2016. He was being held in jail for a drug offense and, on the day of his release, was incorrectly informed that he was not a U.S. citizen and therefore subject to deportation. It is mind-boggling that it took officials two years to figure out he was a citizen. 

There are many reasons to be critical of over-zealous immigration enforcement in the United States—such as the fact that enforcement is focused on non-violent individuals with no criminal records or relatively minor records. However, locking up U.S. citizens takes over-zealousness to a whole new level. 

Source: http://www.immigrationimpact.com
https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4370-US-Citizens-Caught-in-Immigration.html

Making Sense of the Rising Number of Families Arriving at the Border

Written by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Over the past few months, a new trend has emerged at the U.S.-Mexico border: more families are crossing and presenting themselves to U.S. officials to ask for asylum. But even though the number of people crossing the border are still at historically low levels, the Trump administration alleges it is overwhelmed by the arrival of families. These changes in migration patterns have exposed Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) inability to respond in a humane and effective way. 

In February 2019, the Border Patrol apprehended 66,450 individuals after crossing the border. This number represented the largest number of arrests at the border in years. However, it was only 5,000 higher than a similar spike in overall arrivals in spring 2014. During that last spike, only 38 percent of people arriving at the border were families and unaccompanied children. Last month, that percent rose to nearly 65 percent—42,999 in total. 

This is the largest number of families apprehended at the border in one month since the government began keeping records in 2012. 

CBP border stations were originally created to receive, hold, and process single Mexican adults who were more quickly returned to their home country. In the past, many families were detained in these stations for days at a time, where they suffered freezing temperatures, lack of hygiene, and inadequate medical care. Many would then be transferred to family detention centers, where they were locked up with their children for weeks or months. 

But now that more than half of all border crossers are asylum-seeking families, in recent weeks the government has started to release families along the border, citing a lack of capacity. 

Government officials are not legally required to detain asylum-seeking families. Officials have always had the discretion to release or parole into the country those who come to the border with instructions to appear at an immigration court for a removal hearing at a later date. Yet CBP has presented its inability to hold everyone in detention as a crisis. 

Days after President Trump took office, he issued an executive order which required CBP to reduce the use of humanitarian parole. Following this executive order, CBP increased the use of detention at the border even for individuals who were not flight risks, partly to deter other families from coming. This inhumane practice caused concrete harm to those forced to remain in immigration custody for long periods of time. 

Although the agency claims to be overwhelmed, it has had to deal with large numbers of children and families in the past, including in 2014 and 2016. Instead of coming up with solutions to care for children its custody, CBP doubled down on detention and deterrence. By shifting to more readily releasing families now, the government is recognizing that it can’t detain its way out of the current situation and that release is a viable option. 

Most of the recently released families will end up appearing in immigration court and seeking protection, as is their right. By avoiding the use of detention, CBP is saving taxpayer money and choosing not to subject asylum seekers to harmful detention which deprives them of access to counsel and limits their ability to obtain relief. 

The rise in family apprehensions masks the reality that the border is more secure than ever. With Central Americans making up more than 90 percent of individuals apprehended crossing the border, the days of large numbers of Mexican immigrants coming across the border for work is almost gone. New studies show that with improving economic conditions and a resurgence in national pride, few Mexicans are interested in traveling to the United States.

Faced with these new migration patterns, the Trump administration must recognize that rising border apprehensions do not present the same challenges as in the past. To address the changes, the administration should invest in better infrastructure, including ensuring that families and children are not subjected to deplorable conditions while in CBP custody. 

Fuente: www.immigrationimpact.com/

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4086-Rising-Number-of-Families-Arriving-at-the-Border.html

5 Ways to Prevent the Next Migrant Caravan

 

Written by Royce Murray
Just two weeks ahead of the midterm elections, much attention is being placed on a migrant caravan of Central Americans making their way north through Mexico. Now reported to include more than 7,000 people, the mostly Honduran group is seeking protection from pervasive violence at home. Even though the southern border is more secure than ever and the United States has well-established processes for handling asylum applicants, there are concrete ways to help prevent future caravans from migrating en masse. 


1. Address Root Causes of Central America’s Instability

We first need to take an honest look at why migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America flee. People must have profound and imminent reasons to pick up their lives and leave their homes to journey to a faraway country. For many Hondurans, leaving was not a choice; their safety was at risk and their lives and the lives of their children were on the line. Rather than threatening to cut off the foreign assistance that helps stabilize these countries, the United States has a national interest in addressing root causes of violence and instability in the region so people are able to thrive at home. 


2. Improve Oversight and Accountability of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 

Migrants travel together because there is safety in numbers. The journey is a perilous one, fraught with threats from opportunistic gangs and smugglers as well as the harsh conditions of the trek. When migrants travel alone, they place themselves at greater risk of harm and the chance that they will be mistreated—either physically or procedurally—at the U.S. border. CBP officials have a well-documented history of turning back asylum seekers at ports of entry and subjecting them to harsh treatment while in custody. Improving oversight and accountability for CBP will help ensure that our border processing remains safe and orderly. 


3. Help Mexico Improve Their Asylum System

Central American asylum seekers need more viable options for protection in the region. The United States has a vested interest in further strengthening the Mexican asylum system so that it can better accommodate larger numbers of asylum applications and afford meaningful protection to those at risk. Collaborating with our southern neighbor, rather than threatening them, is far more likely to achieve a successful and viable partnership to address this regional migration issue. 


4. Increase Refugee Admissions

If we don’t want large groups of people to take dangerous journeys in order to seek protection, we must expand U.S. refugee processing for the Central American region. Rather than slashing refugee allocations to record-low numbers, we should increase avenues to apply for protection from abroad. In fiscal year 2018, only 955 refugees were admitted from all of Latin America and the Caribbean and minimal refugee processing is expected to be conducted in the coming year. 


5. Resume In-Country Refugee Processing for Central American Children

Finally, children are at particular risk of violence in places like Honduras where gangs target teens for recruitment or threaten parents with harm to their children if they don’t agree to extortion demands. We should resume in-country processing for unaccompanied children (the “Central American Minors” or “CAM” program) in Central America and ensure that the program can adjudicate applications expeditiously, so children have the option of seeking safety within their home country. 

There is no evidence that this caravan of migrants poses any threat to the safety and well-being of the United States. We can, however, avoid large movements like this if we supplement existing avenues to apply for asylum by providing safe and orderly alternatives to those in need of protection. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3932-how-to-prevent-the-next-caravan-of-migrants.html

New Court Filing Highlights the Government’s Official “Turnback Policy” for Asylum Seekers

Written by Karolina Walters

Eight new asylum seekers joined a lawsuit last week that challenges U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials’ widespread and well-documented practice of turning back asylum seekers at U.S. ports of entry (POE) along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The plaintiffs also amended the complaint in the lawsuit with new facts documenting an official “Turnback Policy” that formalizes CBP’s unlawful practice. Each new plaintiff has been subjected to the Turnback Policy, fears for his or her safety in Mexico, and wishes to seek asylum in the United States. 

As explained in the new filing, under the Turnback Policy, CBP officials assert an unverified “lack of capacity” and then utilize a variety of methods to prevent and delay asylum seekers from reaching ports of entry and making their asylum claims. These methods include coordinating with Mexican immigration authorities or other third parties to implement a “metering” or waitlist system; instructing asylum seekers to wait on the bridge, in the pre-inspection area, or at a shelter in Mexico until there is adequate space at the port of entry; or simply telling asylum seekers that they cannot be processed because the port of entry is “full” or “at capacity.” 

Plaintiffs reference internal CBP documents showing that the Turnback Policy existed as early as May 2016. However, high-level officials in the Trump administration confirmed the existence of the policy, and escalated it, in the spring of 2018 in reaction to news that a large group of asylum seekers, referred to as a “caravan,” sought to present themselves at the San Ysidro point of entry in California. 

Notably, the filing cites DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s May 2018 statement confirming that the government was “metering” asylum seekers and referring to the asylum process as a “loophole” that must be fixed. Recently, a report by DHS’ Office of the Inspector General also confirmed the use of “metering.” 

Plaintiffs’ allege that CBP officials reinforce the sanctioned Turnback Policy with the widespread practices documented in the original complaint, including misrepresentations about the U.S. asylum process, threats, abuse and physical force, coercion, outright denials of access, and physically obstructing access to POEs. Together, the resulting restriction of access to the asylum process, through outright denials and unreasonable delays, puts asylum seekers at imminent risk of grave harm or deportation. Such denial of access to the U.S. asylum process violates both U.S. and international law. 

The lawsuit is filed as a class action, meaning that the individual plaintiffs seek to represent other, unnamed asylum seekers who seek or will seek to claim asylum at a point of entry and are similarly denied access. Thus, this lawsuit may have lasting impact on how our government will treat those seeking protection at our borders. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3928-Turnback-Policy-for-Asylum-Seekers-in-United-States.html

It Is Legal to Seek Asylum

Written by Royce Murray

As thousands of asylum-seeking parents were separated from their children in recent months, the Trump administration actively portrayed them as law breakers who must be prosecuted and punished for coming to the United States. Left out of the narrative is one well-established fact: it is legal to seek asylum.

The Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs our nation’s immigration law, makes clear that anyone arriving at the U.S. border or within the United States is permitted to apply for protection. U.S. law embraces both international and domestic legal obligations not to return any person to a place where they face persecution on account of one of several protected grounds.

Most everyone can apply for asylum, and where narrow exceptions apply, those individuals can apply for other forms of protection including withholding of removal or relief for those at risk of torture.

For those able to reach the U.S. border, many have been unlawfully turned away by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials who have told migrants that ports of entry are closed or that the U.S. no longer welcomes asylum seekers, at least from certain countries, among other justifications. Faced with no alternatives, many asylum seekers present themselves to Border Patrol between the ports of entry in order to seek protection. Following the Attorney General’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting everyone apprehended between the ports of entry, many asylum-seeking parents were separated from their children for months so they could be prosecuted for entry-related crimes before being given a chance to ask for protection.

Confusion is triggered, however, by the existence of federal criminal offenses for unlawful entry (a misdemeanor) or unlawful reentry to the United States after having been deported or ordered removed (a felony). While there are many concerns with entry-related prosecutions, it is particularly problematic when asylum seekers are prosecuted while trying to seek protection.

People fleeing life or death situations cannot often wait in their home countries to secure a visa or even use their true identity documents to depart their country and travel onward. Moreover, there is no way to apply for asylum from outside of the United States; overseas refugee processing is only available to select populations in specific locations and in very small numbers. Only 1,500 refugees may be admitted from all of Latin America and the Caribbean in fiscal year 2018; a mere 126 refugees from that region had been admitted as of June 2018.

To be clear, asylum seekers have a right to apply for asylum, not to be granted asylum. Once an individual tells a DHS official after being stopped at the border that they are afraid, asylum seekers must be processed and referred to asylum officers who assess an asylum seeker’s claims. Enforcement officers, such as CBP officers or Border Patrol agents, are not allowed to make these determinations.

The Refugee Convention also makes clear that countries are precluded from penalizing individuals requesting protection from persecution or torture in their country of origin. Indeed, in 2015 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General noted that the prosecution of those “who express fear of persecution or return to their home countries” was “inconsistent with and may violate U.S. treaty obligations.”

The United States must stop its criminalization of asylum seekers. Rather than treating them as law breakers, our country must adhere to its legal obligations to afford protections to those in harm’s way.

 

Source: www. immigrationimpact.com  

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3852-It-Is-Legal-to-Seek-Asylum.html