Download or read book Adjudicating Refugee and Asylum Status written by Benjamin N. Lawrance and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study offering the first comparative account of the increasing dependence on expertise in the asylum and refugee status determination process.

Download or read book Lives in the Balance written by Philip G. Schrag and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Americans generally think that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is focused only on preventing terrorism, one office within that agency has a humanitarian mission. Its Asylum Office adjudicates applications from people fleeing persecution in their homelands. Lives in the Balance is a careful empirical analysis of how Homeland Security decided these asylum cases over a recent fourteen-year period. Day in and day out, asylum officers make decisions with life-or-death consequences: determining which applicants are telling the truth and are at risk of persecution in their home countries, and which are ineligible for refugee status in America. In Lives in the Balance, the authors analyze a database of 383,000 cases provided to them by the government in order to better understand the effect on grant rates of a host of factors unrelated to the merits of asylum claims, including the one-year filing deadline, whether applicants entered the United States with a visa, whether applicants had dependents, whether they were represented, how many asylum cases their adjudicator had previously decided, and whether or not their adjudicator was a lawyer. The authors also examine the degree to which decisions were consistent among the eight regional asylum offices and within each of those offices. The authors’ recommendations­, including repeal of the one-year deadline­, would improve the adjudication process by reducing the impact of non-merits factors on asylum decisions. If adopted by the government, these proposals would improve the accuracy of outcomes for those whose lives hang in the balance.

Download or read book Refugee Roulette written by Jaya Ramji-Nogales and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-04-29 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first analysis of decisions at all four levels of the asylum adjudication process : the Department of Homeland Security, the immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the United States Courts of Appeals. The data reveal tremendous disparities in asylum approval rates, even when different adjudicators in the same office each considered large numbers of applications from nationals of the same country. After providing a thorough empirical analysis, the authors make recommendations for future reform. From publisher description.

Download or read book Lives in the Balance written by Andrew Ian Schoenholtz and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Americans generally think that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is focused only on preventing terrorism, one office within that agency has a humanitarian mission. Its Asylum Office adjudicates applications from people fleeing persecution in their homelands.a Lives in the Balance ais a careful empirical analysis of how Homeland Security decided these asylum cases over a recent fourteen-year period. a Day in and day out, asylum officers make decisions with life-or-death consequences: determining which applicants are telling the truth and are at risk of persecution in their home countries, and which are ineligible for refugee status in America. Ina Lives in the Balance, the authors analyze a database of 383,000 cases provided to them by the government in order to better understand the effect on grant rates of a host of factors unrelated to the merits of asylum claims, including the one-year filing deadline, whether applicants entered the United States with a visa, whether applicants had dependents, whether they were represented, how many asylum cases their adjudicator had previously decided, and whether or not their adjudicator was a lawyer. The authors also examine the degree to which decisions were consistent among the eight regional asylum offices and within each of those offices. The authorsOCO recommendations, including repeal of the one-year deadline, would improve the adjudication process by reducing the impact of non-merits factors on asylum decisions. If adopted by the government, these proposals would improve the accuracy of outcomes for those whose lives hang in the balance. a Andrew I. Schoenholtz ais Visiting Professor and Director of the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown University Law Center. He is Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. a Philip G. Schrag ais Delaney Family Professor of Public Interest Law and Director of the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown University Law Center. a Jaya Ramji-Nogales ais Associate Professor of Law at Temple UniversityOCOs Beasley School of Law."

Download or read book Administrative Justice and Asylum Appeals written by Robert Thomas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-18 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FIRST PRIZE WINNER OF THE SLS BIRKS PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP 2011 How are we to assess and evaluate the quality of the tribunal systems that do the day-to-day work of adjudicating upon the disputes individuals have with government? This book examines how the idea of adjudicative quality works in practice by presenting a detailed case-study of the tribunal system responsible for determining appeals lodged by foreign nationals who claim that they will be at risk of persecution or ill-treatment on return to their country of origin. Over recent years, the asylum appeal process has become a major area of judicial decision-making and the most frequently restructured tribunal system. Asylum adjudication is also one of the most difficult areas of decision-making in the modern legal system. Integrating empirical research with legal analysis, this book provides an in-depth study of the development and operation of this tribunal system and of asylum decision-making. The book examines how this particular appeal process seeks to mediate the tension between the competing values under which it operates. There are chapters examining the organisation of the tribunal system, its procedures, the nature of fact-finding in asylum cases and the operation of onward rights of challenge. An examination as to how the tensions inherent in the idea of administrative justice are manifested in the context of a tribunal system responsible for making potentially life or death decisions, this book fills a gap in the literature and will be of value to those interested in administrative law and asylum adjudication.

Download or read book The Basic Law Manual written by United States. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Office of the General Counsel. Asylum Division and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Asylum Adjudication written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book U S Asylum System written by Richard M. Stana and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2009-05 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Asylum and Credible Fear Issues in U S Immigration Policy written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reforming Asylum Adjudication written by David A. Martin and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Asylum Adjudication written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book U S Asylum System written by Richard M. Stana and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year, tens of thousands of noncitizens apply in the United States for asylum, which provides refuge to those who have been persecuted or fear persecution. Asylum officers (AO) in the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and immigration judges (IJ) in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) assess applicants' credibility and eligibility. GAO was asked to evaluate aspects of the asylum system. This report addresses the extent to which quality assurance mechanisms have been designed to ensure adjudications' integrity, how key factors affect AOs' adjudications, and what key factors affect IJs' adjudications. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed agency documents, policies, and procedures; surveyed all AOs, supervisory AOs, and IJs; and visited three of the eight Asylum Offices. These offices varied in size and percentage of cases granted asylum. Results of these visits provided additional information but were not projectable. USCIS and EOIR have designed quality assurance mechanisms to help ensure the integrity of asylum adjudications, but some can be improved. While 75 percent of AO survey respondents reported that basic training prepared them at least moderately well to adjudicate cases, they also reported that despite weekly training, they needed additional training to help them detect fraud, conduct security checks, and assess the credibility of asylum seekers. The Asylum Division does not consistently solicit AOs' and supervisory AOs' input on a range of their training needs. Without this, the Asylum Division lacks key information for making training decisions. The Asylum Division has designed a quality review framework to ensure the quality and consistency of asylum decisions. Although supervisors review all cases and headquarters reviews certain cases, other local quality assurance reviews rarely took place in three of the eight Asylum Offices primarily due to competing priorities. By fully implementing its quality review framework, the Asylum Division would better identify deficiencies, examine their root causes, and take action. The majority of IJ survey respondents reported that training enhanced their ability to adjudicate asylum cases, although the majority also reported having additional training needs. EOIR expanded its training program in 2006, particularly for newly hired IJs, and annually solicits IJs' views on their training needs. Asylum officers reported challenges in identifying fraud and assessing applicants' credibility, as well as time constraints, as key factors affecting their adjudications. The majority of AO survey respondents reported it moderately or very difficult to identify various types of fraud, despite mechanisms designed to help identify fraud and assess credibility. Further, assistance from other federal entities to AOs in assessing the authenticity of asylum claims has been hindered in part by resource limitations and competing priorities. With respect to time constraints, 65 percent of AOs and 73 percent of supervisory AOs reported that AOs have insufficient time to thoroughly adjudicate cases--that is, in a manner consistent with procedures and training--while management's views were mixed. The Asylum Division set a productivity standard equating to 4 hours per case in 1999 without empirical data. Without empirical data on the time it takes to thoroughly adjudicate a case, the Asylum Division is not best positioned to know if its productivity standard reflects the time AOs need for thorough adjudications. Verifying fraud, assessing credibility, and time constraints are also key factors affecting IJs' adjudications. IJ survey respondents cited verifying fraud (88 percent) and assessing credibility (81 percent) as a moderately or very challenging aspect of asylum adjudications. Responding to 2006 Attorney General reforms, EOIR implemented a program to which IJs can refer instances of suspected fraud and receive information to aid in fraud detection. Eighty-two percent of IJs reported time limitations as moderately or very challenging aspects of their adjudications. EOIR has detailed IJs to courts with high caseloads and plans to hire additional staff, but it is too soon to know the extent to which additional staff will alleviate IJs' time challenges.

Download or read book Immigration Judges and U S Asylum Policy written by Banks Miller and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there are legal norms to secure the uniform treatment of asylum claims in the United States, anecdotal and empirical evidence suggest that strategic and economic interests also influence asylum outcomes. Previous research has demonstrated considerable variation in how immigration judges decide seemingly similar cases, which implies a host of legal concerns—not the least of which is whether judicial bias is more determinative of the decision to admit those fleeing persecution to the United States than is the merit of the claim. These disparities also raise important policy considerations about how to fix what many perceive to be a broken adjudication system. With theoretical sophistication and empirical rigor, Immigration Judges and U.S. Asylum Policy investigates more than 500,000 asylum cases that were decided by U.S. immigration judges between 1990 and 2010. The authors find that judges treat certain facts about an asylum applicant more objectively than others: facts determined to be legally relevant tend to be treated similarly by judges of different political ideologies, while facts considered extralegal are treated subjectively. Furthermore, the authors examine how local economic and political conditions as well as congressional reforms have affected outcomes in asylum cases, concluding with a series of policy recommendations aimed at improving the quality of immigration law decision making rather than trying to reduce disparities between decision makers.

Download or read book Inside Asylum Bureaucracy Organizing Refugee Status Determination in Austria written by Julia Dahlvik and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access monograph provides sociological insight into governmental action on the administration of asylum in the European context. It offers an in-depth understanding of how decision-making officials encounter and respond to structural contradictions in the asylum procedure produced by diverging legal, political, and administrative objectives. The study focuses on structural aspects on the one hand, such as legal and organisational elements, and aspects of agency on the other hand, examining the social practices and processes going on at the frontside and the backside of the administrative asylum system. Coverage is based on a case study using ethnographic methods, including qualitative interviews, participant observation, as well as artefact analysis. This case study is positioned within a broader context and allows for comparison within and beyond the European system, building a bridge to the international scientific community. In addition, the author links the empirical findings to sociological theory. She explains the identified patterns of social practice in asylum administration along the theories of social practices, social construction and structuration. This helps to contribute to the often missing theoretical development in this particular field of research. Overall, this book provides a sociological contribution to a key issue in today's debate on immigration in Europe and beyond. It will appeal to researchers, policy makers, administrators, and practitioners as well as students and readers interested in immigration and asylum.

Download or read book Asylum and Inspections Reform written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on International Law, Immigration, and Refugees and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book U S Asylum System written by U S Government Accountability Office (G and published by BiblioGov. This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year, tens of thousands of noncitizens apply in the United States for asylum, which provides refuge to those who have been persecuted or fear persecution. Asylum officers (AO) in the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and immigration judges (IJ) in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) assess applicants' credibility and eligibility. GAO was asked to evaluate aspects of the asylum system. This report addresses the extent to which quality assurance mechanisms have been designed to ensure adjudications' integrity, how key factors affect AOs' adjudications, and what key factors affect IJs' adjudications. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed agency documents, policies, and procedures; surveyed all AOs, supervisory AOs, and IJs; and visited three of the eight Asylum Offices. These offices varied in size and percentage of cases granted asylum. Results of these visits provided additional information but were not projectable.

Download or read book Identities on Trial in the United States written by ChorSwang Ngin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ChorSwang Ngin radically shifts the asylum-seeking narrative by focusing on rarely heard stories of persecution and escape from China and southeast Asia. Identities on Trial in the United States weaves together the cases of a tortured student from a Myanmar prison, an apostate of Islam, several victims of ethnic and sexual violence from Indonesia, and the escape of men and women from China’s draconian one-child policy, among others. Joann Yeh, an immigration attorney and contributor to this work, examines asylum seeking in a Mandarin-speaking Californian community and discuss the failure of the United States' quasi-judicial immigration system, highlighting "asylum lawfare" in courtroom dramas and arguing for an anthropological advantage in asylum preparation. This book is an essential text for policy makers, students, lawyers, activists, and those engaged with migration studies seeking a more just asylum outcome.