Refugee Status

The immigration laws and regulations provide some avenues to apply for lawful status from within the U.S. or to seek relief from deportation.  The eligibility requirements for these benefits and relief can be stringent, and the immigration agencies often adopt overly restrictive interpretations of the requirements.  Learn about advocacy and litigation that has been and can be undertaken to ensure that noncitizens have a fair chance to apply for the benefits and relief for which they are eligible.  

Recent Features

All Refugee Status Content

October 30, 2015

On Thursday, Secretary Jeh Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) addressed the 12th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference, covering a wide-range of topics, from border...

October 29, 2015

The Northern Triangle of Central America—comprising El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—is now one of the most dangerous places on the planet. The United Nations estimates that Honduras has the...

October 16, 2015

Although their numbers have declined this year, unaccompanied children (UACs) from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico continue to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border by the thousands. Many—...

October 2, 2015

The United States plays an important role in protecting thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people fleeing persecution in their home countries. At no point in U.S. history has this role been...

September 10, 2015

As the Syrian refugee crisis mounts, the United States is being pressured both internally and externally to take in more of the nearly 4 million refugees that have been displaced due to ongoing...

September 4, 2015

The Central American refugee influx along the U.S.-Mexico border, which generated so much press attention in 2014, is not going away anytime soon. The conditions which spur Salvadorans,...

July 28, 2015

Elvis Garcia is a migration counselor at the Catholic Charities Community Services of New York. He is also a former unaccompanied child who fled from his native Honduras in 2005 when he was 15...

May 8, 2015

In 2009, the Obama Administration ended family detention at the infamous T. Don Hutto jail in Texas and cut the number of immigrants in family detention to less than a hundred. However, after the...

June 17, 2016

Last month, the Obama Administration doubled down on their Central American refugee deterrence policy by beginning a new round of raids targeting mothers and young people for deportation back to...

June 16, 2016

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,...

May 31, 2016

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...

April 14, 2016

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...

April 6, 2016

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...

March 23, 2016

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...

March 9, 2016

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...

February 18, 2016

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...

February 8, 2016

Washington D.C. – After being held in detention for more than a month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), eight of the families

February 5, 2016

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...

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