Posted on November 18, 2020 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s guidelines on asylum-seekers’ initial fear screenings are illegal, vacating the guidance in its entirety and ordering new fear assessments for the individuals who couldn’t clear the guidance’s asylum bar. The judge explained that USCIS had set an unlawfully high standard for individuals to clear during initial asylum screenings, instead of the “low bar” described in immigration law. The manual was vacated and the government was ordered to redo plaintiff’s credible fear interviews.
Posted on September 16, 2020 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
Granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia barred CBP agents, who receive substantially less training than USCIS asylum officers, from conducting credible fear interviews for asylum seekers.
Posted on January 18, 2020 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw found that the government may not conduct class members’ non-refoulement interviews without first affording the interviewees access to their retained counsel both before and during any such interview. The judge’s order applies to all asylum seekers in California who have hired lawyers and are subject to the Migrant Protection Protocols policy
Posted on November 13, 2019 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
The first step to an asylum application is a credible fear interview, where an asylum seeker has to show they have a credible fear of returning to their home country, which was designed to be a low threshold that many could meet. When border patrol officers began conducting some of these interviews in June, the approval rate dropped sharply. The approval rate for border patrol was 47% compared to the roughly 80% for asylum officers. The move to use border patrol officers for this purpose has been criticized, with asylum officers agreeing that border patrol were trained with an enforcement mindset that is unsuitable for humanitarian work, and it is unfair to both the border patrol and the asylum seekers.
Posted on October 8, 2019 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
few weeks ago, reports emerged that DHS had begun utilizing CBP officers to conduct credible fear interviews, but the unprecedented shift in functions remains shrouded in secrecy. The American Immigration Council and Tahirih Justice Center recently filed a FOIA lawsuit to uncover more information about this move and how it’s altering the asylum process.
Posted on October 15, 2018 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
Mother Jones reports on ICE’s use of family separation outside of the context of the “zero-tolerance” border policy, sharing the story of a woman who was detained with her 2-year-old daughter after they fled Honduras. The mother passed her credible fear interview, and then her daughter was separated from her because the mother was found to be a safety risk to her child, presumably based on information she provided during her interview
Posted on April 27, 2015 by Brian D. Lerner, Immigration Lawyer & Deportation Attorney
The Associated Press reports that top ICE officials expect there to be far fewer migrant children and families crossing the border on their own this summer than there were during last year’s influx.
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