On June 11, Jeff Sessions ruled that those seeking asylum by citing fears of gang violence or domestic abuse will no longer be able to find refuge in the United States. This ruling was delivered in conjunction with an official revocation of asylum that was granted to a Salvadoran woman by an immigration appeals court in August 2014.
Sessions’ ruling will likely bar tens of thousands of applicants from receiving asylum over the next few years. Its effects are already taking a toll on immigrants who have been waiting in court lines for years. In nine simple bullet points, Sessions put a stronger burden of proof on immigrants who already have a challenging time providing convincing evidence and eradicated most routes to asylum for immigrants fleeing Central America.
Although the debate on eligibility for asylum needs to be settled so that courts can award protected status consistently, Sessions is operating under a strict political agenda to bar immigrants from the United States under the guise of “enforcing the law.” Historically, the United States has creatively interpreted the definition of asylum in order to pursue its own political interests; Sessions’ ruling is no different. Instead of mending an outdated law that is failing to address the political problems facing the modern world, he is “interpreting” the law to serve his own political ends; he is awarding death sentences to innocent people.
Birth of the “Asylee”
Asylum is a fairly new political concept. While initial drafts calling for the rights of refugees began under the League of Nations, the international community did not officially accept a definition until the U.N. Convention of 1951.The protocol was later amended in 1967; since then, these international laws have been the backbone of refugee policy.
Before the term “refugee” was internationally recognized, the United States had an ambivalent attitude towards those fleeing violence. While some were welcomed, others were not. In 1939, for instance, the Roosevelt Administration turned away 937 mostly Jewish passengers of the St. Louis who had arrived just beyond the shores of Florida after fleeing Germany. More than a quarter of them were killed in the Holocaust because they were forced to return to Europe.
Using this incident and the atrocities committed during the war as a frame of reference, the international community was attempting to address the problems of the time. They needed to deal with the aftermath of the world war, and they had to relocate millions of displaced people. So, they defined the refugee as one who, “owing to well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or… is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…”
Once the refugee officially existed, the asylee became a type of refugee. Rather than applying for status and waiting in a third location for approval, the asylee applies for status once he or she reaches the United States.
Refuge as a Political Weapon
Although the United States opened its borders to certain refugees after World War II, it treated refugee protection as a political tool rather than as a moral obligation. Even though the United States helped draft the 1951 U.N. Convention, it did not ratify nor implement the international guidelines until decades later, when it enacted the Refugee Act of 1980 in order to end anti-communist bias of the country’s immigration practices.
As the world dealt with the refugee crisis after WWII, the United States maintained its national origins quota system from 1924 and made few exceptions for refugees. In an attempt to avoid any long-term commitment to refugees, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which implemented cut-off dates that withheld visas from Jews and Eastern Europeans who had previously fled fascist states.
Exceptions to the quota system were made for those escaping communist countries. Exceptions were first made for Hungarians, then for Cubans, Russian Jews, and the IndoChinese. The Executive Branch admitted most of these refugees through a loophole called “parole power.”
Simultaneously, people fleeing countries controlled by governments friendly to the United States were almost never granted asylum. The United States’ historical relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean in particular demonstrates this phenomenon. Those fleeing U.S.-supported dictatorships were labeled economic migrants and were actively barred from applying for asylum. In addition, they were excluded from applications for refugee status.
While those seeking asylum from countries south of the United States had between a one and two percent chance of acceptance before the 90s, those seeking asylum from the U.S.S.R. and Romania had an over 70 percent chance at approval for status. Even though the Refugee Act was supposed to correct political bias in the system, it mostly failed. While Eastern Europe is not still sending a disproportionate number of approved asylum seekers, wealthier applicants are granted asylum more often due to their superior legal counsel and acceptance rates vary greatly by state.
“Fraud in the System”
In the past decade, there has been a significant increase in applications for asylum in the United States from all regions of the world. Sessions has blamed fraud in the asylum system for the overwhelming numbers of applications and the large population of undocumented immigrants. Currently, fraud is more a narrative than a proven reality.
Regardless, Sessions’ view ignores the basic facts of modern world politics. To begin with, there is ample evidence of a growing refugee crisis around the world, with the number of displaced peoples surpassing the numbers of those after World War II. In particular, applications from countries located in the Northern Triangle — Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador — have sharply risen since 2013. From 2016 to 2017, the number of people applying from these countries rose by 25 percent; most of them were adolescents fleeing record levels of gang violence.
Gangs usually target women and children because of their vulnerable positions in society, which U.S. immigration law has historically interpreted as “membership of a particular social group.” However, Sessions has ruled that in order to qualify under this clause one must be a part of a group that is “composed of members who share a common immutable characteristic, [that] is defined with particularity, and is socially distinct within the society in question.” Because Sessions ruled that being a woman or a child is not in and of itself “socially distinct” in society, women and children cannot claim asylum solely on the grounds of being targeted for these characteristics.
Furthermore, he wrote that “certain populations [that] are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.” Violence is only legitimate when it “arises on account of membership in a protected group and the victim may not find protection except by taking refuge in another country.” Sessions further explained that an asylee must prove the state encouraged violence committed by a private individual and that in general, “violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum.” However, he failed to explicitly outline when violence not sponsored by the state would be adequate for claims to asylum.
Because gang violence dominates the Northern Triangle, and the majority of people fleeing these countries are women and children, these clauses alone will likely bar the majority of claims to asylum from countries like Guatemala and El Salvador.
Disincentivizing Immigration
Sessions’ ruling is another interpretation defining what is legitimate violence to flee from. He has added strict stipulations to the the non-ideological definitions created by the United Nations, which will conveniently deny asylum for applicants from countries located near the United States.
It is important to note that Sessions’ ruling will single-handedly streamlined asylum decisions that have been inconsistent in the past. That being said, his interpretation is backed by a political goal to disincentivize people from coming to the United States. His actions are simply another chapter to the United States’ long abuse of asylum, a protection created precisely because this country could not determine who was worthy of asylum in the first place.
The United States’ laws need to be changed so that Sessions’ ruling is no longer relevant. A democracy founded on liberalism cannot continue to award death sentences to innocent people.
Image Credit: Flickr/thierry ehrmann