How The El Paso Immigration Court Fails To Uphold Due Process

Everyone deserves a fair and transparent court process. But that is simply not the case in an El Paso Immigration Court in Texas. At this court, thousands of detained immigrants face obstacles to a fair day in court each year.

Alarmingly, judges in this court granted about 3 percent of all asylum applications in FY 2016 and 2017. This is the lowest rate in the country. 

After weeks of investigation, we filed a complaint with the Department of Justice demanding immediate oversight and action. 

This complaint highlights systemic due process violations that are undermining justice for detained immigrants called before judges at the El Paso Service Processing Center (SPC) Immigration Court. The complaint draws from court observations of hundreds of immigration hearings, several sworn statements from legal practitioners appearing before the El Paso SPC Immigration Court, standing orders used by the Immigration Judges, and more. Read the evidence here. 

The complaint details egregious immigration judge conduct and court rules, such as: 

• Judges making hostile comments including, “due process is an opportunity, not a privilege” and “you know your client is going bye-bye, right?”
• Migrants being deprived of accurate interpretation at hearings.
• Judges limiting the amount of evidence asylum seekers are allowed to present to defend themselves from deportation to dangerous conditions.

The American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, Executive Office of Immigration Review, Office of the Inspector General, and the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility. 

These serious due process concerns must be investigated so that all immigrants detained in El Paso can have a fair day in court. 

Source: www. americanimmigrationcouncil.org

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4100-El-Paso-Immigration-Court-Fails-to-Uphold-Due-Process.html

USCIS Changes to Asylum Interview Scheduling Allows Long-Pending Cases to Languish

 

Written by Royce Murray 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) made abrupt and sweeping changes to how the agency will schedule interviews for affirmative asylum applications. Rather than interviewing those who have been waiting months or years for their interview, asylum offices will now prioritize brand new filings ahead of all others waiting in the queue. 

While scheduling asylum interviews in a timely manner is important to applicants, as well as the government, this decision will create additional obstacles for many worthy applicants looking to successfully claim asylum. Over the years while applicants wait for an interview, detailed memories fade, supporting documents get lost, corroborating witnesses become harder to find, and evidence grows stale. Long delays also prevent family members from reuniting in safety together, as spouses or children may be left in tenuous situations outside of the United States. 

Announced in late January and effective immediately, USCIS will schedule interviews following three priorities: 

1. Applications previously scheduled but the interview had to be rescheduled at the request of the applicant or USCIS; 
2. Applications pending 21 days or less since filing; 
3. All other pending asylum applications, starting with newer filings and working back toward older filings. 

The trigger of this scheduling shift is the lack of adequate resources for the asylum program. 

USCIS currently reports a backlog of 311,000 pending asylum cases, which has steadily grown in the past five years as violent conditions in the Northern Triangle of Central America sent many asylum seekers to the U.S. southern border. Subjected to a fast-track deportation process called “expedited removal,” asylum seekers are given a preliminary screening by an asylum officer to protect against wrongfully deporting people back to grave harm. Many asylum officers were tasked with handling these screening interviews rather than previously filed, affirmative asylum cases, and there were not enough new officers brought on board to meet operational needs. 

The workload challenges the asylum program is facing right now are not new. In the mid-1990s, when the asylum program was unable to handle the volume of applications, the asylum system saw numerous reforms, including staffing up the program and delaying issuance of a work permit only to those whose applications were pending for six months. 

Those changes had an impact but as caseloads ebb and flow, USCIS must continue to adapt. When the need for asylum grows, so too must our commitment to protecting those at risk. Rather than pitting old cases against new cases, the agency must set the asylum program up for success by staffing the program with a sufficient number of asylum officers to meet demand.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3768-Changes-to-Asylum-Interview-Scheduling.html