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Heartless Public Benefit Regulation Hurts Immigrants and All of Us

Photo by Mary Turck

August 12, 2019—The new public charge rule, now set to be published on August 14 and to go into effect 60 days later, will harm residents, communities and economies in every state in the country. As immigrants and their families give up needed health care, food, and affordable housing, their health, well-being and economic stability are threatened. This will be felt not just by immigrants and their families, but also by all members of our communities.

NOTE: For further information and links to resources from many organizations, see ILCM’s Public Charge/Public Benefits page.

Immigrants and their U.S. citizen family members are already giving up access to public benefits that they are entitled to under law. The “chilling effect” of the rule began before it was even official, with immigrant families refusing public benefits to which family members were legally entitled. One in seven adults in immigrant families reported forgoing public benefits in 2018 because of fear of the public charge rule. Among low-income families, this chilling effect is even stronger, affecting one adult in five.

“The public charge rule is one more example of the heartless and hateful anti-immigrant policies promulgated by this administration,” said Lenore Millibergity, acting executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “Immigrants are less likely to use public benefit programs, using 39 percent fewer welfare and entitlements benefits per person than native-born Americans.

“The way to strengthen our country is to strengthen the families who live here. Today, one child in four has at least one immigrant parent. The administration’s bullying tactics, its use of fear and intimidation as a substitute for actual policy, does harm to these children and families and to the entire country.”

NOTE: For further information and links to resources from many organizations, see ILCM’s Public Charge/Public Benefits page.

 

 

 

End Hate Speech That Inspires Violence

After the devastating massacres in El Paso and Dayton this weekend, we demand an end to hate speech from political leaders and a shift in policy to protecting rather than attacking immigrants, people of color, Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ+ communities, and other minorities now in peril.

The young white nationalist who massacred 20 people in El Paso and wounded more than two dozen others was inspired by racist and ant-immigrant hatred. He was precisely the kind of lone wolf that FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the Senate Judiciary Committee about less than two weeks ago. In testimony to the committee, Wray said:

“The FBI is most concerned about lone offender attacks, primarily shootings, as they have served as the dominant lethal mode for domestic violent extremist attacks. We anticipate law enforcement, racial minorities and the U.S. government will continue to be significant targets for many domestic violent extremists.”

The ADL annual report on murder and extremism in the United States found that in 2018, “every single extremist killing—from Pittsburgh to Parkland—had a link to right-wing extremism” and that “white supremacists were responsible for the great majority of the killings.” Perpetrators of violence are informed not only by divisive, racist, anti-immigrant tweets and public statements, but also by witnessing inhumane policies that treat immigrants and their children as subhuman. These include denial of asylum to immigrants seeking safe haven, forcing asylum seekers into filthy, overcrowded jail cells, and ongoing attacks on our legal immigration system.

“Those political leaders who marginalize and demonize immigrant, Black, brown, LGBTQ and other communities are aiming the guns, even if individual white nationalists are pulling the triggers,” said Lenore Millibergity, interim director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “We need cultural and policy changes to end this epidemic of domestic white nationalist terrorism.”

Congressional leaders from both parties must step up and condemn racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Such irresponsible rhetoric inspires the violence that continues to take innocent lives.

ILCM Has a New Executive Director

Contact: Melissa Pfeiffer, Associate Director, ILCM, 651-641-1011 ext. 201

SAINT PAUL, MN, July 19, 2019 —The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) has selected Veena A. Iyer, JD as our new executive director. Iyer will begin at ILCM on September 9th.

“In this time in our nation’s history, it is vital to defend and advance the rights of immigrants and refugees in our communities,” said Iyer. “The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota has long been at the forefront of these efforts in the Upper Midwest, and it is my privilege to join this team.”

ILCM board chair Irma Márquez Trapero welcomed Iyer to the team, saying, “We at ILCM have a big task ahead of us to not only continue to provide exceptional legal support, but also to continue to act boldly as community leaders at a time when our immigrant and refugee communities are targets of hateful and racist attacks. Veena Iyer is an outstanding and fearless advocate and we are excited to have her lead ILCM into the future.”

Serving immigrant and other underserved populations is a passion for Iyer. She began her career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow and staff attorney at Legal Aid Chicago (formerly the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago), where she represented clients, created and managed a legal clinic for low-income immigrant students, and conducted English and Spanish presentations for community members and service providers. In Minnesota, Iyer has represented low-income clients as a pro bono attorney with ILCM, Tubman and Standpoint.

Iyer has worked at the Nilan Johnson Lewis law firm since 2011, and was named shareholder in 2015. She is the chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group at the firm, received Minnesota Lawyer’s Diversity & Inclusion Award in 2018, and was named to the Minnesota Super Lawyers list in 2019. She is licensed to practice law in Minnesota and Illinois.

An active community leader, Iyer is a past president of the Minnesota Asian Pacific American Bar Association, is a member of the organization’s Advisory Board and its Judicial Committee, and received the organization’s Leadership Award. She has held numerous board roles with Minnesota Women Lawyers and was honored with the Service to MWL Award. She also serves on the board of directors at Portico Healthnet as vice chair and member of the Finance Committee.

Iyer’s educational background includes a BA in History from the University of Chicago (with honors) and a JD from Harvard University, cum laude. She speaks conversational Spanish and Tamil and basic Russian.

Quick Facts About Asylum

(For a printable PDF version of this Fact Sheet click here.)

What is Asylum?

Asylum is a legal protection defined by U.S. immigration law and international laws and human rights protections. Foreign nationals may apply for asylum if they are already in the United States, regardless of how they entered, or at an authorized point of entry.

An asylee, a person granted asylum, is a person who has to flee their country of origin due to persecution, or fear of persecution, based on their race, nationality, political opinion, religion or membership in a particular social group. While asylum is not a permanent legal resident status, asylees may apply for a green card one year after receiving asylum in the United States.

Asylees receive protection from being returned to their country of origin, are authorized to work in the United States, may apply for a social security number, and may petition to bring family members to the United States.

What is the normal asylum process?

U.S. asylum applications may take two forms: affirmative and defensive. An asylum applicant must be physically present in the United States or at a port of entry to apply. They may apply regardless of how they entered the country.

Under the affirmative asylum process, individuals must usually apply within one year of arrival to the United States, or immediately upon arrival at a port of entry. An affirmative application is made to a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officer, who then decides whether to grant asylum.

In the defensive asylum process, individuals can seek asylum as a defense against removal after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehends them without a valid visa inside the United States or at a port of entry. A person in the defensive asylum process is already in removal proceedings and requests asylum in immigration court. An immigration judge decides whether or not to grant asylum.

If a USCIS officer denies an affirmative application after the individual’s visa has expired, the individual is referred to removal proceedings where they can use the defensive asylum process to renew their request for asylum.

A person subject to expedited removal must indicate that they have a credible fear of returning to their country of origin. The “credible fear interview” is ordinarily conducted by a trained USCIS officer. However, in the summer of 2019, the administration ordered that credible fear interviews will be conducted by Border Patrol officers.

If the officer says that the individual does not have credible fear, authorities refer them for removal. They can then appeal the negative decision to an immigration judge.

How long does the asylum process take?

The length of the asylum process varies from six months to several years. The length of time needed to process an application depends significantly on whether it is an affirmative or defensive claim, and on the individual circumstances of the case. Under the defensive system, applicants must go through the immigration court system, which faces significant backlogs. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, as of July 2019, there were over 900,000 pending cases with an average wait time of 727 days. The backlog continues to worsen with funding for immigration judges failing to keep pace with the need to hire more judges.

What are the acceptance rates?

In FY 2018, 22,740 individuals were granted asylum, about 35 percent of the 64,974 individuals who underwent asylum decisions. Most asylum seekers come from China, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

Denial Rates

Denial rates on asylum decisions increased in 2018, with 65 percent of asylum petitions denied, compared to a 42 percent denial rate in 2012 and a 50 percent denial rate in 2016. In 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered that claims of domestic violence and gang violence could no longer be used as a basis for asylum applications. That order was one of the reasons causing the rate of asylum denials to increase during the Trump Administration.

Applicants who have attorneys have a far higher approval of asylum petitions, compared to those without representation. The process is extremely complicated, and navigating immigration courts without an attorney is difficult.

Applicants who are held in detention have lower rates of approval of their asylum claims than those who are free in the community. Locating documents, witnesses and evidence needed to support an asylum claim is extremely difficult for an applicant who is held in detention.

How is asylum changing?

In January 2019, the Department of Homeland Security implemented the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP) also known as “Remain in Mexico”, sending asylum seekers back to Mexico and forcing them to wait there for the completion of their immigration court proceedings. This, in effect, denies asylum seekers the protection allowed to them under international and U.S. immigration law. In many cases, asylum seekers in Mexico face the very dangers they fled, as well as having difficulty in finding places to stay and in making contact with attorneys or getting notice of court dates.

Metering

Metering is a term that Customs and Border Protection uses for a process by which it severely restricts the number of people who can request asylum at a port of entry or at a U.S.-Mexico border crossing each day. When asylum seekers reach a port of entry, they are turned away and told that they have to put their name on a waiting list. As a result of these lists, asylum seekers wait for weeks, sometimes months for an opportunity to request asylum. As of late June 2019, 19,000 asylum seekers were waiting on the Mexican side of the border for a chance to request asylum in the United States. After going through the metering process, asylum seekers then seek asylum, but most are required to remain in Mexico while the U.S. government processes their asylum application. Metering has resulted in potential asylum seekers crossing the border without authorization rather than waiting for a process that is rife with corruption and uncertainty.

Ending Asylum at the Southern Border

On July 15, 2019, the Trump administration issued a new regulation that effectively ends amnesty for any migrants arriving at the U.S. – Mexico border if they have traveled through another country. The new rule covers everyone except Mexican and Canadian citizens. The rule denies people who have traveled through a third country any opportunity to apply for asylum in the United States unless they have applied for and been denied asylum in that third country. The rule nullifies national and international obligations to protect asylees.

Several organizations, represented by attorneys from the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a lawsuit on June 16 asking a federal court to declare this regulation invalid and enjoin the administration from enforcing it.

Other pending lawsuits challenge the metering and Remain in Mexico policies.