What is Asylum, Anyway?
The asylum-seeking process in the United States has been under scrutiny for years from all sides of the political spectrum. Most recently, the Trump Administration has taken a very rigid approach to immigration as a whole, as well as the process and admittance of asylum seekers.
Often terms like “refugee” and “asylum seeker” get thrown around in politics, but what do they really mean? The major difference between someone seeking asylum and someone seeking refugee status is where they are applying. Refugees are considered as such if they apply from another country to their desired country of asylum, such as the United States. An asylum seeker is someone who has not gone through the process of applying and being granted refugee status but who is already within the territory of their desired country of resettlement.
“The United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
The United States Congress also uses this definition, as it can be found in the Refugee Act of 1980, the law establishing the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Many humanitarian advocates have argued for the expansion of the definition, especially in terms of climate change and gang violence as major sources of displacement, but this is the current working definition that the United States uses.
The Process of Applying for Asylum
Those seeking asylum at any point of entry in the United States must go through a rigorous vetting process in order to prove they have a “well-founded fear” of persecution. There are two major pathways through which this happens:
Affirmative Asylum: Applicants must apply and go through an interview process with an asylum officer who will decide if their status is granted or referred. If granted, the asylee (along with the family they brought) receives permission to stay in the country; if referred, the case must be heard by an immigration judge.
Defensive Asylum: This is the process for asylees who are actively going through removal proceedings. They defensively apply for asylum with an immigration judge who will then decide if the asylee will be granted asylum or if they will be sent back to their country of origin.
On the outside, the system of vetting asylum seekers by one or both pathways-affirmative or defensive-may seem straightforward, but the reality is that it is far from it. In the documentary Well-Founded Fear, the filmmakers record the Department of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and its immigration officers handling everyday cases of people seeking asylum. This documentary exposes how biased these systems and asylum decisions can be. It also sheds light on the hardships of asylum seekers, who are forced to endure intense questioning, which often results in them retelling their worst traumas without the guarantee of safety.
Deserving its own attention, the treatment of asylum-seekers is one of the many egregious flaws in the current U.S. asylum process. If this process doesn’t seem tumultuous enough, of the millions of people who apply for asylum, only about 20 percent of applicants are accepted. According to The New York Times, “Immigration judges typically deny 80 percent of the applications, weeding out fraudulent claims and ineligible applicants.”
The most daunting part about all of this is that even if an asylum seeker is accepted, they must wait a year until they can then apply for a green card to become a permanent legal resident. As an additional arduous step to obtain safety and citizenship, it is clear that the light at the end of the tunnel for an asylum seeker is awfully dim.
Ineffectiveness and Asylum Under Attack
Earlier, I hinted at the ineffectiveness of the asylum-seeking process, and data seems to agree that the system is flawed and inefficient. According to the American Immigration Council, “The backlog in U.S. immigration courts reached an all-time high in April 2020, with over 1.17 million open removal cases. On average, these cases had been pending for 734 days and remained unresolved.” The backlog is especially worrying because it means that about 1.17 million asylees are currently in the United States with no formal recognition, protections, status, or support.
What’s more concerning is that even for the asylees who make it through the application process, there are more challenges when it comes to actually finding relief. The American Immigration Council also found that, “Individuals with an immigration court case who were ultimately granted relief—such as asylum—by February 2020 waited more than 930 days on average for that outcome. Illinois and Virginia had the longest wait times, averaging 1,300 days until relief was granted in the immigration case.” It is clear that the need for asylum is very real, and with our current system, we don’t have the capacity to properly support that need. But, we must address this need and protect the claims of asylum-seekers.
The question is how? The answers aren’t simple, especially under the Trump administration. Georgetown Law Professor Paul Wickham Schmidt agrees that “The US asylum system is under unprecedented attack by the Trump administration. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen claimed without proof that this system has attracted too many fraudulent applicants and served as a magnet for undocumented migration.” President Trump has also significantly lowered the cap of refugees and asylum seekers allowed in the country, although the need for asylum has increased significantly in the past decade.
Along with capping the number of migrants who are granted asylum, the Trump administration has also significantly reduced the number of asylum officers and facilities at ports of entry (POEs). Doing so has resulted in lengthy waiting periods for asylum seekers who require screening. Additionally, because ports of entries are significantly under-resourced, asylum seekers are illegally being turned away by U.S. authorities from their right to seek asylum. These actions are noticed, and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have legally challenged Trump’s policies in court.
Migrants held in detention centers at the border, families separated for days, and children sitting in cages are the most visible symptoms of the Trump administration’s policies on refugees and immigration. Many people inside and outside of the United States are alarmed by the treatment of asylum seekers, yet little has improved.
A Story Behind the Numbers
Although numbers and data can give us a sense of the hardships that asylum seekers face, they often fail to produce a full picture of the life of an asylum seeker. These are real people with real trauma, many of whom experience very real threats and prosecution at home.
Arnovis is a 24-year old Salvadoran man who is no stranger to the asylum process in the United States. The Nation’s journalist John Washington followed Anorvis’s story, and quickly learned of the hardships that asylum seekers coming from Central America must endure.
In order to make the trip to the United States, Arnovis and his family had to pay hundreds of dollars in smuggling fees and endure extremely harsh conditions such as, “riding on top of trains, surviving cold and hunger and detention and robbery and the constant, nagging, needling fear that finally brought him here.” And, at the time that Washington first met Arnovis, Arnovis had already faced deportation twice, as well as months in detention and separation from his daughter.
In his most recent attempt to seek asylum, Arnovis was threatened by his coyote for not sending the money to the appropriate contact. Penniless, Arnovis just barely escaped with his life.
To this day, Arnovis has not been granted asylum, or even been given the opportunity to apply for the process. This is no surprise, as “for both Salvadorans and Guatemalans the approval rate throughout the 1980s hovered between 1 and 3 percent.” These acceptance rates have not increased much, if at all, even though the need for asylum due to increasing gang violence and corruption is on the rise in Central America.
While this is just one case of millions, Arnovis’ story sheds light on the travails that many asylum seekers face, especially those coming from Central America. During a time when our administration is accepting fewer applicants while making it more difficult to apply for and reach a safe point of entry, it is especially critical that we do not lose touch with the narratives behind the numbers.
Solutions and Next Steps
In order to create more humane and trauma informed asylum and refugee policy, we must commit to investing our energy, resources, and brain power to the matter. Fortunately, there are already people who are invested in this work, and they have provided us with tools to make these efforts more impactful.
As an individual, there are steps that you can take to advocate for improved asylum and refugee policy. The American Friends Service Committee suggests doing the following:
- Urge Congress and call upon representatives to protect asylum seekers.
- Use effective messaging to advocate for asylum seekers. Check out this AFSC resource for tips on creating more social change.
- Display love!
For more specific policy solutions regarding amnesty, detention, funding, and immigration proceedings, check out the “Recommendations” section on Amnesty International’s website.
With combined national efforts to reform our asylum processing system and local efforts to develop more welcoming communities, we can ensure that asylum seekers receive safe entry and a safe home in the United States.
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