Legal Review: The U.S. Government Continues to Make Life Harder for Asylum Seekers

By Immigration Attorney James O. Hacking III with Hacking Law Practice LLC.

In May 2018, President Trump enacted a zero-tolerance policy that would prosecute anyone trying to cross the United States border illegally. Weeks after, in June 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that domestic violence and the threat of gang violence may not be valid claims for asylum seekers.

Unfortunately, as new information comes to light, these are not the only ways the United States government is making it more difficult for those trying to find protection within the country.

In a new report published at the end of May, the Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project found that 26 documents were removed from online by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

These documents guided asylum seekers through the process of the interviews during which their cases are heard. The removal also made it more difficult for immigration attorneys trying to help and prepare asylum seekers.

The documents included an overview of international human rights law, explanations on how decisions on asylum are made and one that dealt exclusively with asylum claims based on gender, such as the domestic violence many are trying to flee.

A lengthy guide on what one could expect during the interview process also went missing. It was found that these files disappeared between March 2 and April 27, 2017, not long after Donald Trump was inaugurated as President.

“The documents have not disappeared altogether,” says Asylum Lawyer James O. Hacking III. “But now that they are buried in other training documents, some hundreds of pages long, it has certainly made them much more difficult to find.”

In addition to the missing documents, the USCIS is also now processing those who have most recently applied first. It is a process that makes little sense considering that many asylum seekers have been waiting at border crossings for weeks.

Some believe that this is being done so that people have very little time to prepare for their interviews, particularly when the very documents that could help them cannot be found.

After the news of the missing documents broke, a spokesperson for USCIC stated simply that the documents were still available online.

While that is true, they are not where they once were, and certainly not as easily accessible as before. And that is only further impeding the process for those desperately seeking asylum.