Asylum reform

The Senate this week is expected to take up reform of the nation’s refugee law, which since 1996 has made entry into the United States substantially more difficult for people with valid claims of asylum. The reform, of which Sen. Susan Collins is an original co-sponsor, is known as the Refugee Protection Act. It increases the opportunity for refugees to make their case for protection, to be offered the kind of due process Americans believe to be essential to a fair court system.

Unlike most immigrants who apply to live in the United States, refugees arrive because they are fleeing persecution or oppression based on ethnicity, religion, nationality or for political or membership in certain social groups. Until 1996, refugees could present their cases to immigration judges and could use attorneys, who would have far greater familiarity with what constituted legal asylum. Since then, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, at the direction of Congress, had the authority to use “expedited removal” – to make decisions about a refugee’s credibility right at the border or airport and decide whether to deport him or her.

Given the number of those seeking asylum and the difficulty of trying to decide who qualifies, INS inspectors, according to advocates for immigrants, make plenty of mistakes. This is partly because of the trauma refugees have undergone or because of language or cultural differences. The lawyers’ group Committee for Human Rights, for instance, tells of an Albanian woman who fled here after being raped because of her ethnicity. She was given as an interpreter an Albanian man, but was horrified at the thought of telling her story in front of him, and when she finally obtained a hearing and some legal advice a judge didn’t believe her because she had not told the story of her assault at the beginning. When such mistakes are made they can result in someone, say, fleeing torture being sent home to be tortured again. But even if a refugee’s story is considered credible, the ordeal doesn’t stop there.

Next up is mandatory detention – at taxpayer expense – which can last months or even years while a hearing is scheduled to determine whether they can remain in the country. The lawyers’ group has documented dozens of such cases: the Liberian boy who arrived alone and, not understanding the language, was locked up for 18 months in an adult facility. The Iraqi man who fled after protesting his government and looked for freedom here only to be placed for more than a year in detention. Theoretically, after a year a refugee can apply for permanent residency. Unfortunately, the number of refugees allowed to become permanent residents is capped, so one year of waiting can stretch into four or five, putting plans on hold while these families wait to hear of their fates.

The reform before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, would eliminate the expedited removal, except in the case of emergencies, and return to the process of judicial oversight, make decisions to deny parole from detention centers reviewable by an immigration judge and remove the cap on permanent residency. Unlike the proposal from Congress that would provide legal residency to millions of illegal immigrants, this proposal doesn’t add a significant number of immigrants to the United States, but it does improve the admittance system.

Most important, the reforms restore some of the humanity to this difficult process. Maine’s senators should support the Leahy-Brownback measure to encourage decent treatment for those fleeing injustice.