Refugee Status
Six Facts You Should Know About Refugees
Refugees and asylees are a relatively small share of U.S. immigrants – just eight percent of all immigrants living in the U.S. These are individuals who are fleeing persecution, war, conflict, oppression, and human rights violations in their home countries and who have been granted the ability to reside permanently… Read More
Public Radio Report Mischaracterizes U.S. Asylum Process
Media outlets are reporting on the uptick in the number of individuals crossing the southern border into the U.S. This trend is not surprising given the ongoing violence in Central America. The conditions in the region are not significantly improving by any measure, and as a result people continue to flee while the Administration’s refugee “deterrence policy” fails to deter many. Read More
How the Asylum and Immigration Court Backlogs Reached an All-Time High
The current backlogs in the immigration court and asylum systems have long been a problem and the government offices tasked with bringing the backlog down still have much to do. As detailed in the Human Rights First report In the Balance: Backlogs Delay Protection in the U.S. Asylum… Read More
Understanding the Central American Refugee Crisis
The unprecedented levels of crime and violence that have overwhelmed the Northern Triangle countries in recent years have produced a refugee situation for those directly in the line of fire, making no amount of danger or chance of deportation sufficient to dissuade those victims from leaving. Read More
Undocumented Children Face These Challenges in Accessing Public Education
Unaccompanied children arriving from Central America face many challenges – post-traumatic stress, facing a judge without an attorney, separation from their families, and the fear of being returned to their home countries, among others. Receiving the public education to which they are entitled should not be one of those challenges. Read More
Human Rights Commission Holds Hearing on Refugee Children and Families Seeking Protection
Earlier this week the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a thematic hearing on the “Human Rights Situation of Migrant and Refugee Children and Families in the United States.” A broad national coalition of advocacy groups and legal service providers, led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Transnational Law Clinic,… Read More
New Studies Show Refugees are Integrating
At a time when politicians and others are expressing concern about the U.S.’s refugee resettlement process, two new studies show that refugees want to integrate and are indeed integrating into the fabric of our country. However, there is much variation depending on the refugees’ country of origin, and there remains… Read More
Judge Who Believes Toddlers Can Represent Themselves, Only Part of the Problem in the Battle over Representation for Kids
Over the past week, several media outlets reported that Assistant Chief Immigration Judge (ACIJ) Jack Weil claimed that he could teach immigration law to three- and four-year-old children such that the children could represent themselves in immigration court. Now, Attorney General Loretta Lynch claims that the… Read More
Breaking Down the Central American Refugee Crisis and the U.S. Response
When tens of thousands of women and unaccompanied children from Central America journeyed to the United States seeking asylum in 2014, President Obama’s administration concentrated its efforts and poured resources into an aggressive strategy of deterrence that is still in place today. The multi-prong approach, including a media campaign… Read More
Florida House Punishes Sanctuary Cities, Bill Authorizing Military Force Against Refugees Passes Committee
The Florida House of Representatives passed a sweeping “anti-sanctuary city” bill this week that would penalize Florida counties who do not aggressively target undocumented immigrants or who fail to honor every federal request to detain immigrants, regardless of the requests’ constitutionality. A House committee also passed a bill that targets… Read More
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