Report: U.S. officials mistreat many asylum-seekers

The U.S. government’s treatment of asylum-seekers is growing worse, according to a new report the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued this week.

“How we treat people who come to our borders says a lot about who we are as Americans,” said USCIRF chairman Thomas J. Reese. “Those seeking refuge from persecution deserve to be treated with dignity and should not be confined in prison-like conditions simply for seeking freedom and protection in the United States.”

The report, titled Barriers to Protection, focuses on troublesome elements of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) expedited removal program, a process that allows officials to return certain non-citizens to their countries of origin without an immigration court hearing—unless they can demonstrate credible fear of persecution or torture. The report found poor training, flawed processing, and automatic detention are contributing to numerous negative outcomes, particularly for children.

The report recounts several individual stories, including one of a Chinese Christian who was suspected of lying because the person could not name the church he or she attended. The DHS official did not know many Chinese Christians are part of house churches.

Commission investigators said many border control officials responsible for identifying credible fears are openly skeptical of asylum claims and do not follow procedures meant to ensure persons are not mistakenly returned to dangerous situations.

Global conflicts zones have created the greatest migration crises since World War II, including 1 million refugees who fled Syria’s civil war for Europe last year. In 2014, a surge of migrants—including 52,000 unaccompanied minors—sought refuge in the U.S. from Central American violence. A Senate investigation found thousands of those children fell into the hands of sex traffickers or simply disappeared amid a lack of oversight from overwhelmed officials.

Detaining asylum-seekers also creates problems, according to the report. While immigration judges have the ability to grant supervised release or some other detention alternative, they do not always choose to do so. In 2014, WORLD reported on how asylum-seekers can sometimes spend years in detention while cases work their way through the immigration court system—which is experiencing record backlogs.

Among its recommendations, USCIRF said DHS should audit the expedited removal program and appoint a high-ranking official with sufficient authority to implement reforms and ensure asylum-seekers are protected.

The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act created USCIRF and authorized it to study the expedited removal program. In 2005, USCIRF produced its first report on problems in the program, but the commission said DHS did not implement many of its recommendations.

“It is a travesty that in the 10-plus years since USCIRF first documented serious failures in the expedited removal process, the United States has failed to address these issues, with dramatic consequences for men, women, and children,” Reese said.