Asylum-seekers sue DHS over application deadline

Honduran Elmer Geovanni Rodriguez Escobar fled his home country to escape the violent gang targeting him. Its members had already murdered his nephew, peppered his home with gunfire, and tried to kidnap his daughter from school. He escaped to the United States on a path to citizenship, but two years after crossing the border, a then-unknown application deadline prevents Rodriguez from getting asylum status or employment authorization.

Rodriguez’s story is one of four noted in a complaint filed by asylum-seekers against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week. The suit accuses DHS agents of failing to notify them about the one-year application deadline, a requirement already tricky to meet because of bureaucratic red tape and court backlogs.

Guatemalan Lidia Margarita Lopez Orellana heard about the deadline for the first time one year and two months after entering the United States with her two youngest children. According to the complaint, DHS officials never informed her she had limited time to apply for asylum. She hoped to learn more about the application process in an immigration court but officials scheduled her hearing date long after the application deadline passed.

“The DHS is not setting up a clear system by which to apply,” said Matt Adams, legal director for Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, one of the organizations defending the case. He told me most of his clients failed to receive an application form or notification about the deadline from DHS agents.

Immigration attorney Jason Dzubow, who founded The Asylumist blog, said some of his clients received the deadline notice in a packet of documents but claimed the note was not very accessible. About 100 of his clients missed the one-year deadline and only a few got a verbal notice beforehand.

“If they don’t speak English or don’t read every page, you could miss that,” he said. “It is a very significant issue for those who don’t file on time.”

DHS officials declined to comment about the case but did confirm the agency does not require agents to give asylum-seekers special notice about the one-year deadline.

With some exceptions, people who miss the deadline can only remain in the U.S. if they gain “withholding removal status.”

Unlike asylum status, this category requires much more evidence of persecution in an applicant’s home country. It also prohibits applicants from obtaining citizenship, bars them from returning to the United States if they leave, prevents spouses and children from achieving the status by association, and allows the government to move them to another country at any time—consequences people who get asylum don’t face.

According to Dzubow, the instability of living without asylum can be “very difficult psychologically.”

But he doesn’t think requiring DHS officers to notify asylum-seekers of the deadline will solve the problem—especially since few of the would-be applicants speak English.

“Even if told, the importance doesn’t always sink in,” he said. “It’s not emphasized.”

Dzubow, who believes the government should abolish the strict one-year deadline, predicts the lawsuit will make waves if the DHS loses the case. But he insists the Department of Justice could make more effective changes by streamlining immigrant courts, adding personnel, and enhancing email communication systems.

“Living in limbo land with one foot out the door is not helpful for anyone,” he said.