#Katrina Eiland

[minnesotafollower]

Biden Administration’s New Restrictions on U.S. Asylum Law Being Challenged in Federal Courts 

This year has seen many developments regarding the Biden Administration’s attempts to cope with the large numbers of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Here is a review of some of those developments. Biden’s New Asylum Regulation[1] On February 21, the Biden Administration announced a proposed rule that would  require rapid deportation of an immigrant at the U.S. border who had…

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#American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) #asylum #Biden Administration #Blas Nuñez-Neto #Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela #Cuba #DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas #District Judge Jon S. Tigar #Erin Heeter #Federation for American Immigration Reform #Haiti #Immigrant Defenders Law Center #Jane Bentrott #Judge Lawrence Van Dyke #Judge Richard A. Paez #Judge William A. Fletcher #Justice Action Center #Katrina Eiland #Krish O’Mara Vignarajah #Lee Gelernt #Lindsay Toczylowski #Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service #Nicarauga #U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland #U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit #U.S. District Court for Northern California #U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler #U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal #U.S. Senaator Alex Padilla #U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján

[chamerionwrites]

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Northern California, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and National Immigrant Justice Center filed a legal challenge today to the Biden administration’s new asylum ban.

The challenge was filed swiftly after the new policy’s unveiling. The ban largely mimics two Trump-era policies — known as the “entry” and “transit” bans — which were blocked by the courts. It prohibits asylum for everyone at the border who transited through another country en route to the United States (i.e., people from countries other than Mexico) except for those who are able to obtain a scarce appointment to present themselves at a border port through a flawed mobile application; the rare person who first sought and was denied asylum in another country; or those who can prove that they qualify for one of a few other extremely narrow exceptions.

“The Biden administration’s new ban places vulnerable asylum seekers in grave danger and violates U.S. asylum laws. We’ve been down this road before with Trump,” said Katrina Eiland, managing attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The asylum bans were cruel and illegal then, and nothing has changed now.”

The filing argues that asylum laws do not allow the administration to restrict access to asylum based on an individual’s manner of entry or whether they applied for asylum elsewhere. It further explains that migrants cannot meaningfully seek asylum in transit countries because many lack a functioning asylum system, others have systems that are stretched to the breaking point, and most are not remotely safe for asylum seekers to find refuge. U.S. courts have recognized these principles in rejecting the previous asylum bans that the new rule tries to combine and re-impose.

“People fleeing persecution have a legal right to seek asylum, no matter how they reach the border,” said Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “Our asylum system was designed to protect people fleeing imminent threats to their lives, who do not have the luxury of waiting for an elusive appointment or for an application to be adjudicated in a country where they are in danger. The Biden administration has had over two years to set up a fair and humane asylum process post-Title 42. That it has instead chosen to resurrect and repackage illegal Trump-era policies is reprehensible.”

The case also cites numerous issues with requiring people to use the flawed CBP One mobile app to secure an appointment to seek asylum, including lack of financial resources to acquire a smartphone, lack of adequate internet access to use the app, technical glitches, language and literacy barriers, and an insufficient number of available appointments. These multiple, compounding barriers to CBP One access will leave many asylum seekers stranded indefinitely in dangerous and life-threatening conditions in Mexico.

“This unlawful rule relies on a mobile app that functions poorly, is available in just three languages, and requires people to enter a lottery for a woefully insufficient number of appointments,” said Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “Even more egregious, the rule perpetuates false notions that people fleeing persecution are safe in Mexico and Central America, and it offers purported solutions that will be routinely unavailable, especially to migrants who are not from the Western Hemisphere. In doing so, the rule levies special harm on some of the most vulnerable migrants, including women, LGBTQ people, and Black and Indigenous people.”

The challenge to the ban was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, American Gateways. Central American Resource Center, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Tahirih Justice Center.

#immigration #refugees #lines on a map #politics #news

[free-for-all-fics]

Obscure Characters List - Female Edition (A-M)

Obscure Characters I love for some reason - Female Edition (A-M). (By obscure I mean characters that have little to no fanfic written about them. Not necessarily characters nobody’s ever heard of.) Don’t ask me to explain why. UPDATED: I had to split these up into separate posts because tumblr is being a butt about post length or something and won’t let me add more to either list idk.

A

Abigail Bishop/Emily (Let’s Scare Jessica to Death)

Agnes (Downfall Redux)

Agony Symbiote (Marvel Comics)

Alice (Apsulov: End of Gods)

Amanda Ripley (Alien Isolation)

Amelia (Underworld)

Anastasie “Tasi” Trianon (Amnesia Rebirth)

Annalise, Queen of the Vilebloods (Bloodborne)

Anna Valerious (Van Helsing 2004)

B

Baroness Clarimonde Catani (The Vampire Happening)

Belle (A Christmas Carol)

Black Canary/Dinah Drake/Dinah Laurel Lance (DC Comics)

Blackfire/Princess Komand'r (DC comics/Teen Titans)

Blind Mag/Magdalene DeFoe (Repo! The Genetic Opera)

Brides of Dracula (any version)

C

Cala Maria (Cuphead)

Calendar Girl/Page Munroe (DC Comics/The New Batman Adventures)

Catherine Chun (SOMA)

Charlotte Elbourne (Vampire Hunter D)

Charlotte Thornton (Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall)

Chrissy/Mildred Pratt (Deadstream)

Constance Blackwood (We Have Always Lived in the Castle)

Cora (Devil’s Carnival 2)

Countess Marya Zaleska (Dracula's Daughter)

D

Dana Newman/The Angry Princess (Thirteen Ghosts remake)

Dolirra (Fariwalk: The Prelude)

Doll Face (The Strangers)

Dollisa (Fariwalk: The Prelude)

E

Edith Finch (What Remains of Edith Finch)

Elisabeth Williams (Maid of Sker)

Elizabeth Eilander (Rusty Lake Paradise)

Elizabeth Shelley (Frankenhooker)

Empress Tihana (Amnesia Rebirth)

Erin (You’re Next)

Estella (Great Expectations)

Esther/Leena Klammer (Orphan 1 and 2)

Evelyn “Evie” Carnahan O' Connnell  (The Mummy series)

F

Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

G

Ginger Fitzgerald (Ginger Snaps)

Glorificus “Glory” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Goody (Vampires)

Grace Le Domas (Ready Or Not)

Gwendolyn “Gwen” Grayson/Royal Pain (Sky High)

H

Harper Thornton (Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall)

Hel (Apsulov: End of Gods)

Hero (Much Ado About Nothing)

I

Imogen “Idgie” Threadgoode (Green Fried Tomatoes)

Iris (30 Days of Night)

Isabelle/The Bride (Spookies)

J

Jane Doe (Autopsy of Jane Doe)

Jayme/Red (Blood Fest)

Jennet Humfrye/The Woman in Black (The Woman in Black)

Julia/Subject Three (TAU)

Juliette Waters (Sylvio)

Justine Florbelle (Amnesia the Dark Descent)

K

Kate Drew (Nancy Drew, The Silent Spy)

Kathy Rain (Kathy Rain)

Katrina Van Tassel (Sleepy Hollow)

Kissin’ Kate Barlow (Holes)

L

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower (Bloodborne)

Lady Sybil Crawley/Branson (Downton Abbey)

Lamia (Stardust)

Laura "Lorelai" Wood (Lorelai)

Laure Richis (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer)

Laurie (Trick ‘r Treat)

Leech Woman (Puppetmaster series)

Lena (Underworld: Blood Wars)

Lily (V/H/S Amateur Night/SiREN)

Lily Munster (The Munsters)

Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree (Elden Ring)

Lucille Sharpe (Crimson Peak)

Lucy Billington (The Invitation)

Lunar Princess Ranni (Elden Ring)

M

Malenia the Severed (Elden Ring)

Marni Wallace (Repo! The Genetic Opera)

Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood (We Have Always Lived in the Castle)

Mel (Nancy Drew, Warnings at Waverly Academy)

Melanie Ravenswood (Phantom Manor)

Melina (Elden Ring)

Millicent (Elden Ring)

Milk Maiden (2001 Maniacs)

Mirror Queen (The Brothers Grimm)

Miss Brixil (Level 16)

Moder (The Ritual)

#Obscure characters list #Obscure characters #Obscure fictional characters #will be added to over time

[anoriathdunadan]

Sessions’ ban on administrative closure means that husbands and wives of U.S. citizens awaiting permanent residency could be ripped away from their spouses before they can complete the process. It could mean people not mentally competent to participate in their deportation proceedings could be forced to move forward anyway. And unaccompanied children seeking special protective status could be sent back to dangerous situations before their backlogged visas are available.

The attorney general’s decision to wipe out administrative closure will also contribute to the already massive backlog of more than 700,000 immigration cases, further squeezing the courts and undercutting immigrants’ opportunities to fairly present their claims. Immigration courts are already overburdened and lack important procedural protections. But they have to make critical, sometimes life-or-death decisions about whether immigrants — many of them asylum seekers fleeing persecution or Dreamers with deep roots in their communities — will be admitted or exiled.  As Immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks has put it, immigration courts are already “doing death-penalty cases in a traffic-court setting.” But with this administration’s policy changes, even that traffic court is turning into a kangaroo court. Mistakes and due process violations will inevitably result.

...

This is just one of many changes Sessions is imposing to make immigration procedures less fair. He is planning to weigh in on an immigration case that could make it much harder to get a “continuance” — another important tool in immigration judges’ toolkit that allows immigrants more time to get a lawyer, prepare their case, or await the outcome of an immigration application. And earlier this year, Sessions’ Department of Justice announced that it would be putting in place ambitious case completion goals on immigration courts and imposing quotas on individual immigration judges.

#immigration #sessions #trump

[lodelss]

ACLU: Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S.

But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country’s asylum system isn’t capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers’ precarious status in the country has already pushed many to leave.

“They’re preferring to move on rather than staying here in a dangerous country,” said Rebeca Sanchez-Ralda, a Guatemalan attorney working with the U.S.-based organization Justice in Motion.

According to Sanchez-Ralda, insecurity in Guatemala and the low capacity of the government to process an influx of asylum applications means the new arrivals are faced with an impossible choice: stay, and face a new set of risks, or set off towards more familiar ones.

“They don’t have all the personnel to do the interviews or the shelters to put people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible at all.”

The policy is the latest of the Trump administration’s attempts to block asylum at the Southern U.S. border. Now, people who show up looking for protection in the U.S. can be shipped to Guatemala and told to apply for asylum there instead. But the U.N. has called Guatemala’s asylum process “nascent,” and advocates familiar with it say that nearly all the applications in the system right now have been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years.

“Over 500 asylum petitions have been pending for more than two years now,” said Amílcar Vásquez, a Project Director with Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, a Catholic group that works with the UN to provide services to migrants.

Vásquez says that asylum-seekers are given no support from the Guatemalan government while their applications are being processed.

“They’re going to become desperate without any guarantee of help or assistance from the state.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that as of mid-January 158 people had been sent to Guatemala under the new policy. So far, only Honduran and El Salvadoran nationals have been subjected to the new policy, including families with young children.

The three countries — collectively known as the Northern Triangle — are struggling with record levels of violence and instability. Decades of civil conflicts that were inflamed by covert U.S. involvement in the region, along with a street gang crisis that traces its origins to a wave of deportations from Los Angeles in the 1990s, have made them some of the most dangerous in the world.

Guatemala had the twenty-sixth-highest overall homicide rate in the world in 2017, along with the seventh-highest for females. Honduras has struggled with political violence since a 2009 military coup, and El Salvador now has the highest murder rate in the world, driven primarily by street gangs that have spread to neighboring countries.

“Violence is common here, including extortion and other types of crimes that exist in El Salvador and Honduras as well,” said Sanchez-Ralda. “We have kidnappings, killing of women, and hatred towards LGBTQ people.”

To enable the new deportations, the Trump administration signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales last July. Similar agreements have also been signed with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. U.S. officials have indicated that the program will soon be expanded to include asylum-seekers from other countries.

This means people fleeing persecution from any country in the world could be sent to Central America rather than have the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

Upon arrival in Guatemala, disoriented asylum-seekers encounter a rushed and confusing process where they have only 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum there. One Guatemalan official described the policy’s implementation thus far as a “total disaster.”

The ACLU filed suit on Jan. 15 in U.T. vs. Barr challenging the changes to asylum regulations that allow the ACAs — also known as “safe third country” agreements — to go into effect. The suit claims the policy violates U.S. and international law by failing to protect asylum-seekers from being exposed to harm in the three countries, which are among the most dangerous in the world.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s suit, identified as U.T., is a gay man from El Salvador who was disowned by his parents and threatened by an MS-13 gang member who solicited sex from him. After fleeing to the U.S. to claim asylum, he was instead deported to Guatemala, where he says officials told him it wasn’t safe for gay people and advised him to go to Mexico.

The ACLU’s complaint details how it is now nearly impossible for anyone subjected to an ACA to have their asylum claims heard in a U.S. court. The Trump administration has issued new rules that govern how someone is treated when they show up at the border and ask for asylum. Now, rather than being given a chance to convince an immigration judge that they should be given asylum in the U.S., they can be funneled into a separate process designed to quickly remove them to one of the countries that has signed an ACA.

In 2017, 3,741 El Salvadorans and 2,048 Hondurans won asylum in the U.S. The new rules make it all but certain that number will plummet as removals under the Guatemala ACA continue.

For those deported to Guatemala so far, the combination of danger and the prospect of navigating a confusing process with little help has already forced many to take their chances elsewhere. There are no restrictions on movement between the three countries, meaning that asylum-seekers who fled persecution in one can be easily reached by a person or group that tracks them down in another.

The ACLU’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The United States has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers have access to a safe haven from persecution,” said Katrina Eiland of the ACLU. “This policy does the exact opposite, sending them to a country that can’t adequately protect them through an absurd and illegal process.”

Published January 28, 2020 at 10:23PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2U2OA23 from Blogger https://ift.tt/2t9Qa7s via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

[nancydhooper]

Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S.

But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country’s asylum system isn’t capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers’ precarious status in the country has already pushed many to leave.

“They’re preferring to move on rather than staying here in a dangerous country,” said Rebeca Sanchez-Ralda, a Guatemalan attorney working with the U.S.-based organization Justice in Motion.

According to Sanchez-Ralda, insecurity in Guatemala and the low capacity of the government to process an influx of asylum applications means the new arrivals are faced with an impossible choice: stay, and face a new set of risks, or set off towards more familiar ones.

“They don’t have all the personnel to do the interviews or the shelters to put people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible at all.”

The policy is the latest of the Trump administration’s attempts to block asylum at the Southern U.S. border. Now, people who show up looking for protection in the U.S. can be shipped to Guatemala and told to apply for asylum there instead. But the U.N. has called Guatemala’s asylum process “nascent,” and advocates familiar with it say that nearly all the applications in the system right now have been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years.

“Over 500 asylum petitions have been pending for more than two years now,” said Amílcar Vásquez, a Project Director with Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, a Catholic group that works with the UN to provide services to migrants.

Vásquez says that asylum-seekers are given no support from the Guatemalan government while their applications are being processed.

“They’re going to become desperate without any guarantee of help or assistance from the state.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that as of mid-January 158 people had been sent to Guatemala under the new policy. So far, only Honduran and El Salvadoran nationals have been subjected to the new policy, including families with young children.

The three countries — collectively known as the Northern Triangle — are struggling with record levels of violence and instability. Decades of civil conflicts that were inflamed by covert U.S. involvement in the region, along with a street gang crisis that traces its origins to a wave of deportations from Los Angeles in the 1990s, have made them some of the most dangerous in the world.

Guatemala had the twenty-sixth-highest overall homicide rate in the world in 2017, along with the seventh-highest for females. Honduras has struggled with political violence since a 2009 military coup, and El Salvador now has the highest murder rate in the world, driven primarily by street gangs that have spread to neighboring countries.

“Violence is common here, including extortion and other types of crimes that exist in El Salvador and Honduras as well,” said Sanchez-Ralda. “We have kidnappings, killing of women, and hatred towards LGBTQ people.”

To enable the new deportations, the Trump administration signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales last July. Similar agreements have also been signed with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. U.S. officials have indicated that the program will soon be expanded to include asylum-seekers from other countries.

This means people fleeing persecution from any country in the world could be sent to Central America rather than have the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

Upon arrival in Guatemala, disoriented asylum-seekers encounter a rushed and confusing process where they have only 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum there. One Guatemalan official described the policy’s implementation thus far as a “total disaster.”

The ACLU filed suit on Jan. 15 in U.T. vs. Barr challenging the changes to asylum regulations that allow the ACAs — also known as “safe third country” agreements — to go into effect. The suit claims the policy violates U.S. and international law by failing to protect asylum-seekers from being exposed to harm in the three countries, which are among the most dangerous in the world.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s suit, identified as U.T., is a gay man from El Salvador who was disowned by his parents and threatened by an MS-13 gang member who solicited sex from him. After fleeing to the U.S. to claim asylum, he was instead deported to Guatemala, where he says officials told him it wasn’t safe for gay people and advised him to go to Mexico.

The ACLU’s complaint details how it is now nearly impossible for anyone subjected to an ACA to have their asylum claims heard in a U.S. court. The Trump administration has issued new rules that govern how someone is treated when they show up at the border and ask for asylum. Now, rather than being given a chance to convince an immigration judge that they should be given asylum in the U.S., they can be funneled into a separate process designed to quickly remove them to one of the countries that has signed an ACA.

In 2017, 3,741 El Salvadorans and 2,048 Hondurans won asylum in the U.S. The new rules make it all but certain that number will plummet as removals under the Guatemala ACA continue.

For those deported to Guatemala so far, the combination of danger and the prospect of navigating a confusing process with little help has already forced many to take their chances elsewhere. There are no restrictions on movement between the three countries, meaning that asylum-seekers who fled persecution in one can be easily reached by a person or group that tracks them down in another.

The ACLU’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The United States has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers have access to a safe haven from persecution,” said Katrina Eiland of the ACLU. “This policy does the exact opposite, sending them to a country that can’t adequately protect them through an absurd and illegal process.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/asylum-seekers-are-being-abandoned-in-guatemala-in-a-new-policy-officials-call-a-total-disaster via http://www.rssmix.com/

[go-redgirl]

Sessions seeks to expand power on immigration cases The Hill ^ | 10/23/18 | LYDIA WHEELER

Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to be exploring a rule that would expand his judicial power, and that some say would allow him to drastically reshape federal immigration policy.

In a notice posted this fall, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it is planning to propose a change to the circumstances in which the attorney general can take and rule on immigration cases.

Under past practice, immigration experts say attorney generals have only stepped in to affirm or overturn cases once the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has given a ruling. Such interventions by attorney generals have also been rare.

Under the new proposal, the attorney general could make rulings on immigration cases before they get to the BIA.

“It’s very disturbing,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel at MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

He argued the proposed change, which was included in the fall semi-annual regulatory agenda released by the White House, would give the attorney general too much power.

“This is an attorney general that has already demonstrated when he has done this under existing rules that he is biased, inhumane and, frankly, probably influenced by some racist views,” Saenz said.

DOJ Spokesperson Sarah Sutton called Saenz's characterization "absurd and woefully ignorant."

"It is widely acknowledged that our immigration system is broken and the Attorney General has been steadfast in his pursuit of a lawful and functional immigration system where all Americans can thrive," she said.

"The Department of Justice’s record demonstrates a commitment to the safety and security of all Americans while treating all persons with fairness and dignity. To suggest otherwise is to ignore facts.”

The notice in the regulatory agenda, which maps out agency actions for the coming year, said the cases where the attorney general could intervene would include “those pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals but not yet decided and certain immigration judge decisions regardless of whether those decisions have been appealed to the BIA.”

Plans for the proposed rule were first listed on the spring regulatory agenda released in May. At that time, the expected release date was September 2018. The action has now been delayed until March.

Sessions has already been aggressive in getting involved with BIA cases even without the proposed rule change.

Since taking office in February 2017, Sessions has stepped in seven times after the BIA has made a decision, and offered five rulings -- each adverse to the immigrant.

By comparison, the two attorneys general who served during former President Obama’s eight years in office took over just four cases, said Katrina Eiland, a staff attorney with ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Rulings from the attorney general are enormously consequential because they set precedent for immigration judges to follow.

In June, Sessions essentially made it impossible for victims of domestic or gang violence to qualify for asylum by overturning a BIA decision to grant asylum to a Salvadoran woman who claimed to be the victim of domestic abuse.

“The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes—such as domestic violence or gang violence—or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,” he wrote in his opinion.

Some have argued this authority to adjudicate immigration cases is a way for attorneys general to advance immigration policy.

Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under former President George W. Bush, suggested in a 2016 Iowa Law Review article he co-wrote it could have been a less controversial way for Obama to roll out his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.

“This authority, which gives the Attorney General the ability ‘to assert control over the BIA and effect profound changes in legal doctrine,’ while providing ‘the Department of Justice final say in adjudicated matters of immigration policy,’ represents an additional avenue for the advancement of executive branch immigration policy that is already firmly embodied in practice and regulations,” the article said, quoting a Fordham Law Review article written by Joseph Landau.

Jeffrey Chase, who served as an immigration judge and a senior legal immigration adviser at the BIA under former President Clinton, said DOJ’s rule would give Sessions free range to change the law however he feels whenever he wants.

He said it would bring the system into an era of uncertainty over what is settled law.

Unlike federal district and circuit courts that are part of the federal judiciary branch, immigration courts fall under DOJ control. Immigration judges are DOJ employees and do not serve lifetime appointments like federal district and circuit court judges.

Immigration advocates say Sessions has already taken steps to cut away at their judicial independence.

DOJ announced in an April memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal that it was setting quotas to expedite immigration cases and NPR News reported in May that Sessions had ordered judges to stop putting deportations on hold by closing out cases while immigrants apply for visas and green cards.

Immigration advocates say the plan in the regulatory agenda appears to be another step to further cut back their power.

“It appears to be another move to further control the immigration courts and that’s problematic for due process and fairness in giving immigrants a fair shake in their immigration proceedings,” Eiland said.

Chase said the good news, from his perspective, is the policies set through rulings from the attorney general can be easily undone by a new administration.

Still, experts are alarmed by what they see as a broader effort by Sessions to rewrite immigration law.

“It seems transparent the intent to allow the attorney general to manipulate and distort the process by short-circuiting the normal procedures in order to impose the outcome he seeks,” said Lucas Guttentag, who served as senior counsel to Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama administration.

But there is a question as to whether DOJ can legally do what it’s planning.

“I don’t know if they’ll get away with it,” Saenz said. “I think there are limits to his discretion and this would probably be very troubling to a court because it circumvents the due process provided in the immigration system.”

Decisions from the BIA and final rulings from the attorney general can be appealed to a federal circuit court, but Chase said Sessions’s rulings have not been final. He has instead sent cases back to immigration judges for further action, which delays the opportunity to appeal.

“He’s been very clever about not leaving any case in a position where it could be [directly] appealed,” Chase said.

[free-for-all-fics]

Obscure Characters List - Female Edition

Obscure Characters I love for some reason. (By obscure I mean characters that have little to no fanfic written about them. Not necessarily characters nobody’s ever heard of.) Don’t ask me to explain why. 

A

Abigail Bishop/Emily (Let’s Scare Jessica to Death)

Agnes (Downfall Redux)

Agony Symbiote (Marvel Comics)

Alice (Apsulov: End of Gods)

Amanda Ripley (Alien Isolation)

Amelia (Underworld)

Anastasie “Tasi” Trianon (Amnesia Rebirth)

Annalise, Queen of the Vilebloods (Bloodborne)

Anna Valerious (Van Helsing 2004)

B

Baroness Clarimonde Catani (The Vampire Happening)

Belle (A Christmas Carol)

Black Canary/Dinah Drake/Dinah Laurel Lance (DC Comics)

Blackfire/Princess Komand'r (DC comics/Teen Titans)

Blind Mag/Magdalene DeFoe (Repo! The Genetic Opera)

Brides of Dracula (any version)

C

Cala Maria (Cuphead)

Calendar Girl/Page Munroe (DC Comics/The New Batman Adventures)

Catherine Chun (SOMA)

Charlotte Elbourne (Vampire Hunter D)

Charlotte Thornton (Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall)

Chrissy/Mildred Pratt (Deadstream)

Constance Blackwood (We Have Always Lived in the Castle)

Cora (Devil’s Carnival 2)

Countess Marya Zaleska (Dracula's Daughter)

D

Dana Newman/The Angry Princess (Thirteen Ghosts remake)

Dolirra (Fariwalk: The Prelude)

Doll Face (The Strangers)

Dollisa (Fariwalk: The Prelude)

E

Edith Finch (What Remains of Edith Finch)

Elisabeth Williams (Maid of Sker)

Elizabeth Eilander (Rusty Lake Paradise)

Elizabeth Shelley (Frankenhooker)

Empress Tihana (Amnesia Rebirth)

Erin (You’re Next)

Estella (Great Expectations)

Esther/Leena Klammer (Orphan 1 and 2)

Evelyn “Evie” Carnahan O' Connnell (The Mummy series)

F

Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

G

Ginger Fitzgerald (Ginger Snaps)

Glorificus “Glory” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Goody (Vampires)

Grace Le Domas (Ready Or Not)

Gwendolyn “Gwen” Grayson/Royal Pain (Sky High)

H

Harper Thornton (Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall)

Hel (Apsulov: End of Gods)

Hero (Much Ado About Nothing)

I

Imogen “Idgie” Threadgoode (Green Fried Tomatoes)

Iris (30 Days of Night)

Isabelle/The Bride (Spookies)

J

Jane Doe (Autopsy of Jane Doe)

Jayme/Red (Blood Fest)

Jennet Humfrye/The Woman in Black (The Woman in Black)

Julia/Subject Three (TAU)

Juliette Waters (Sylvio)

Justine Florbelle (Amnesia the Dark Descent)

K

Kate Drew (Nancy Drew, The Silent Spy)

Kathy Rain (Kathy Rain)

Katrina Van Tassel (Sleepy Hollow)

Kissin’ Kate Barlow (Holes)

L

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower (Bloodborne)

Lady Sybil Crawley/Branson (Downton Abbey)

Lamia (Stardust)

Laura "Lorelai" Wood (Lorelai)

Laure Richis (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer)

Laurie (Trick ‘r Treat)

Leech Woman (Puppetmaster series)

Lena (Underworld: Blood Wars)

Lily (V/H/S Amateur Night/SiREN)

Lily Munster (The Munsters)

Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree (Elden Ring)

Lucille Sharpe (Crimson Peak)

Lucy Billington (The Invitation)

Lunar Princess Ranni (Elden Ring)

M

Malenia the Severed (Elden Ring)

Marni Wallace (Repo! The Genetic Opera)

Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood (We Have Always Lived in the Castle)

Mel (Nancy Drew, Warnings at Waverly Academy)

Melanie Ravenswood (Phantom Manor)

Melina (Elden Ring)

Millicent (Elden Ring)

Milk Maiden (2001 Maniacs)

Mirror Queen (The Brothers Grimm)

Miss Brixil (Level 16)

Moder (The Ritual)

N

Nepheli Loux (Elden Ring)

O

Ophelia (Hamlet)

P

Pannochka/Young Girl/Witch (Viy)

Peaches (2001 Maniacs)

Pearl (Pearl)

Pin-Up Girl (The Strangers)

Princess Daphne (Dragon’s Lair)

Princess Gemstone (Laid to Rest 1 & 2)

Princess Una (Stardust)

Q

Queen Akasha (Queen of the Damned)

Queen Jadis the White Witch (Chronicles of Narnia series)

Queen Marika the Eternal (Elden Ring)

Queen Rennala (Elden Ring)

R

Rain (Blood Fest)

Rebecca de Winter (Rebecca)

Rebecca Owens (The Mortuary Assistant)

Riley McKendry (Hellraiser 2022)

Rose Vanderboom (Rusty Lake Roots)

S

Samantha Quick (Nancy Drew, The Silent Spy)

Sarah Bellows (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark)

Sarah Fier (Fear Street series)

Sarah Martin (Night Trap)

Scream Symbiote (Marvel Comics)

Selene (Underworld series)

Shilo Wallace (Repo! The Genetic Opera)

Sinead Lauren (But I’m a Cheerleader)

Sonya (Underworld series)

Sophia Anne Lester Crain (The Haunting of Hill House novel)

Spooky (Spooky’s House of Jumpscares)

Stacy (Vampires)

T

Tanith (Elden Ring)

The Doll (Bloodborne)

The Queen of Light (Mirrormask)

The Queen of Shadows (Mirrormask)

Thorn/Sally McKnight (Scooby Doo)

V

Valerie Page (V For Vendetta)

Violet Baudelaire (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

W

Wick (Devil’s Carnival)

Winnifred “Winnie” Foster (Tuck Everlasting film)

Y

Young Woman/Lucy/Louisa/Lucia/Ames (I’m Thinking of Ending Things)

#Obscure characters list #character list #Obscure characters #Characters list #Obscure fictional characters #Female Characters List #will be added to over time #I'm not even gonna attempt to tag this any further #It'd just be too much #Don't ask me to explain #I don't know what to tell you #characters I like inexplicably

[lodelss]

ACLU: Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

Asylum-Seekers Are Being Abandoned in Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S.

But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country’s asylum system isn’t capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers’ precarious status in the country has already pushed many to leave.

“They’re preferring to move on rather than staying here in a dangerous country,” said Rebeca Sanchez-Ralda, a Guatemalan attorney working with the U.S.-based organization Justice in Motion.

According to Sanchez-Ralda, insecurity in Guatemala and the low capacity of the government to process an influx of asylum applications means the new arrivals are faced with an impossible choice: stay, and face a new set of risks, or set off towards more familiar ones.

“They don’t have all the personnel to do the interviews or the shelters to put people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible at all.”

The policy is the latest of the Trump administration’s attempts to block asylum at the Southern U.S. border. Now, people who show up looking for protection in the U.S. can be shipped to Guatemala and told to apply for asylum there instead. But the U.N. has called Guatemala’s asylum process “nascent,” and advocates familiar with it say that nearly all the applications in the system right now have been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years.

“Over 500 asylum petitions have been pending for more than two years now,” said Amílcar Vásquez, a Project Director with Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, a Catholic group that works with the UN to provide services to migrants.

Vásquez says that asylum-seekers are given no support from the Guatemalan government while their applications are being processed.

“They’re going to become desperate without any guarantee of help or assistance from the state.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that as of mid-January 158 people had been sent to Guatemala under the new policy. So far, only Honduran and El Salvadoran nationals have been subjected to the new policy, including families with young children.

The three countries — collectively known as the Northern Triangle — are struggling with record levels of violence and instability. Decades of civil conflicts that were inflamed by covert U.S. involvement in the region, along with a street gang crisis that traces its origins to a wave of deportations from Los Angeles in the 1990s, have made them some of the most dangerous in the world.

Guatemala had the twenty-sixth-highest overall homicide rate in the world in 2017, along with the seventh-highest for females. Honduras has struggled with political violence since a 2009 military coup, and El Salvador now has the highest murder rate in the world, driven primarily by street gangs that have spread to neighboring countries.

“Violence is common here, including extortion and other types of crimes that exist in El Salvador and Honduras as well,” said Sanchez-Ralda. “We have kidnappings, killing of women, and hatred towards LGBTQ people.”

To enable the new deportations, the Trump administration signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales last July. Similar agreements have also been signed with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. U.S. officials have indicated that the program will soon be expanded to include asylum-seekers from other countries.

This means people fleeing persecution from any country in the world could be sent to Central America rather than have the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

Upon arrival in Guatemala, disoriented asylum-seekers encounter a rushed and confusing process where they have only 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum there. One Guatemalan official described the policy’s implementation thus far as a “total disaster.”

The ACLU filed suit on Jan. 15 in U.T. vs. Barr challenging the changes to asylum regulations that allow the ACAs — also known as “safe third country” agreements — to go into effect. The suit claims the policy violates U.S. and international law by failing to protect asylum-seekers from being exposed to harm in the three countries, which are among the most dangerous in the world.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s suit, identified as U.T., is a gay man from El Salvador who was disowned by his parents and threatened by an MS-13 gang member who solicited sex from him. After fleeing to the U.S. to claim asylum, he was instead deported to Guatemala, where he says officials told him it wasn’t safe for gay people and advised him to go to Mexico.

The ACLU’s complaint details how it is now nearly impossible for anyone subjected to an ACA to have their asylum claims heard in a U.S. court. The Trump administration has issued new rules that govern how someone is treated when they show up at the border and ask for asylum. Now, rather than being given a chance to convince an immigration judge that they should be given asylum in the U.S., they can be funneled into a separate process designed to quickly remove them to one of the countries that has signed an ACA.

In 2017, 3,741 El Salvadorans and 2,048 Hondurans won asylum in the U.S. The new rules make it all but certain that number will plummet as removals under the Guatemala ACA continue.

For those deported to Guatemala so far, the combination of danger and the prospect of navigating a confusing process with little help has already forced many to take their chances elsewhere. There are no restrictions on movement between the three countries, meaning that asylum-seekers who fled persecution in one can be easily reached by a person or group that tracks them down in another.

The ACLU’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The United States has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers have access to a safe haven from persecution,” said Katrina Eiland of the ACLU. “This policy does the exact opposite, sending them to a country that can’t adequately protect them through an absurd and illegal process.”

Published January 28, 2020 at 04:53PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2U2OA23 from Blogger https://ift.tt/2uBLuaJ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

[nancydhooper]

Asylum-Seekers are Being Shipped to Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S.

But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country’s asylum system isn’t capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers’ precarious status in the country has already pushed many to leave.

“They’re preferring to move on rather than staying here in a dangerous country,” said Rebeca Sanchez-Ralda, a Guatemalan attorney working with the U.S.-based organization Justice in Motion.

According to Sanchez-Ralda, insecurity in Guatemala and the low capacity of the government to process an influx of asylum applications means the new arrivals are faced with an impossible choice: stay, and face a new set of risks, or set off towards more familiar ones.

“They don’t have all the personnel to do the interviews or the shelters to put people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible at all.”

The policy is the latest of the Trump administration’s attempts to block asylum at the Southern U.S. border. Now, people who show up looking for protection in the U.S. can be shipped to Guatemala and told to apply for asylum there instead. But the U.N. has called Guatemala’s asylum process “nascent,” and advocates familiar with it say that nearly all the applications in the system right now have been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years.

“Over 500 asylum petitions have been pending for more than two years now,” said Amílcar Vásquez, a Project Director with Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, a Catholic group that works with the UN to provide services to migrants.

Vásquez says that asylum-seekers are given no support from the Guatemalan government while their applications are being processed.

“They’re going to become desperate without any guarantee of help or assistance from the state.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that as of mid-January 158 people had been sent to Guatemala under the new policy. So far, only Honduran and El Salvadoran nationals have been subjected to the new policy, including families with young children.

The three countries — collectively known as the Northern Triangle — are struggling with record levels of violence and instability. Decades of civil conflicts that were inflamed by covert U.S. involvement in the region, along with a street gang crisis that traces its origins to a wave of deportations from Los Angeles in the 1990s, have made them some of the most dangerous in the world.

Guatemala had the twenty-sixth-highest overall homicide rate in the world in 2017, along with the seventh-highest for females. Honduras has struggled with political violence since a 2009 military coup, and El Salvador now has the highest murder rate in the world, driven primarily by street gangs that have spread to neighboring countries.

“Violence is common here, including extortion and other types of crimes that exist in El Salvador and Honduras as well,” said Sanchez-Ralda. “We have kidnappings, killing of women, and hatred towards LGBTQ people.”

To enable the new deportations, the Trump administration signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales last July. Similar agreements have also been signed with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. U.S. officials have indicated that the program will soon be expanded to include asylum-seekers from other countries.

This means people fleeing persecution from any country in the world could be sent to Central America rather than have the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

Upon arrival in Guatemala, disoriented asylum-seekers encounter a rushed and confusing process where they have only 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum there. One Guatemalan official described the policy’s implementation thus far as a “total disaster.”

The ACLU filed suit on Jan. 15 in U.T. vs. Barr challenging the changes to asylum regulations that allow the ACAs — also known as “safe third country” agreements — to go into effect. The suit claims the policy violates U.S. and international law by failing to protect asylum-seekers from being exposed to harm in the three countries, which are among the most dangerous in the world.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s suit, identified as U.T., is a gay man from El Salvador who was disowned by his parents and threatened by an MS-13 gang member who solicited sex from him. After fleeing to the U.S. to claim asylum, he was instead deported to Guatemala, where he says officials told him it wasn’t safe for gay people and advised him to go to Mexico.

The ACLU’s complaint details how it is now nearly impossible for anyone subjected to an ACA to have their asylum claims heard in a U.S. court. The Trump administration has issued new rules that govern how someone is treated when they show up at the border and ask for asylum. Now, rather than being given a chance to convince an immigration judge that they should be given asylum in the U.S., they can be funneled into a separate process designed to quickly remove them to one of the countries that has signed an ACA.

In 2017, 3,741 El Salvadorans and 2,048 Hondurans won asylum in the U.S. The new rules make it all but certain that number will plummet as removals under the Guatemala ACA continue.

For those deported to Guatemala so far, the combination of danger and the prospect of navigating a confusing process with little help has already forced many to take their chances elsewhere. There are no restrictions on movement between the three countries, meaning that asylum-seekers who fled persecution in one can be easily reached by a person or group that tracks them down in another.

The ACLU’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The United States has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers have access to a safe haven from persecution,” said Katrina Eiland of the ACLU. “This policy does the exact opposite, sending them to a country that can’t adequately protect them through an absurd and illegal process.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/asylum-seekers-are-being-shipped-to-guatemala-in-a-new-policy-officials-call-a-total-disaster via http://www.rssmix.com/

[lodelss]

ACLU: Asylum-Seekers are Being Shipped to Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

Asylum-Seekers are Being Shipped to Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S.

But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country’s asylum system isn’t capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers’ precarious status in the country has already pushed many to leave.

“They’re preferring to move on rather than staying here in a dangerous country,” said Rebeca Sanchez-Ralda, a Guatemalan attorney working with the U.S.-based organization Justice in Motion.

According to Sanchez-Ralda, insecurity in Guatemala and the low capacity of the government to process an influx of asylum applications means the new arrivals are faced with an impossible choice: stay, and face a new set of risks, or set off towards more familiar ones.

“They don’t have all the personnel to do the interviews or the shelters to put people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible at all.”

The policy is the latest of the Trump administration’s attempts to block asylum at the Southern U.S. border. Now, people who show up looking for protection in the U.S. can be shipped to Guatemala and told to apply for asylum there instead. But the U.N. has called Guatemala’s asylum process “nascent,” and advocates familiar with it say that nearly all the applications in the system right now have been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years.

“Over 500 asylum petitions have been pending for more than two years now,” said Amílcar Vásquez, a Project Director with Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, a Catholic group that works with the UN to provide services to migrants.

Vásquez says that asylum-seekers are given no support from the Guatemalan government while their applications are being processed.

“They’re going to become desperate without any guarantee of help or assistance from the state.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that as of mid-January 158 people had been sent to Guatemala under the new policy. So far, only Honduran and El Salvadoran nationals have been subjected to the new policy, including families with young children.

The three countries — collectively known as the Northern Triangle — are struggling with record levels of violence and instability. Decades of civil conflicts that were inflamed by covert U.S. involvement in the region, along with a street gang crisis that traces its origins to a wave of deportations from Los Angeles in the 1990s, have made them some of the most dangerous in the world.

Guatemala had the twenty-sixth-highest overall homicide rate in the world in 2017, along with the seventh-highest for females. Honduras has struggled with political violence since a 2009 military coup, and El Salvador now has the highest murder rate in the world, driven primarily by street gangs that have spread to neighboring countries.

“Violence is common here, including extortion and other types of crimes that exist in El Salvador and Honduras as well,” said Sanchez-Ralda. “We have kidnappings, killing of women, and hatred towards LGBTQ people.”

To enable the new deportations, the Trump administration signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales last July. Similar agreements have also been signed with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. U.S. officials have indicated that the program will soon be expanded to include asylum-seekers from other countries.

This means people fleeing persecution from any country in the world could be sent to Central America rather than have the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

Upon arrival in Guatemala, disoriented asylum-seekers encounter a rushed and confusing process where they have only 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum there. One Guatemalan official described the policy’s implementation thus far as a “total disaster.”

The ACLU filed suit on Jan. 15 in U.T. vs. Barr challenging the changes to asylum regulations that allow the ACAs — also known as “safe third country” agreements — to go into effect. The suit claims the policy violates U.S. and international law by failing to protect asylum-seekers from being exposed to harm in the three countries, which are among the most dangerous in the world.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s suit, identified as U.T., is a gay man from El Salvador who was disowned by his parents and threatened by an MS-13 gang member who solicited sex from him. After fleeing to the U.S. to claim asylum, he was instead deported to Guatemala, where he says officials told him it wasn’t safe for gay people and advised him to go to Mexico.

The ACLU’s complaint details how it is now nearly impossible for anyone subjected to an ACA to have their asylum claims heard in a U.S. court. The Trump administration has issued new rules that govern how someone is treated when they show up at the border and ask for asylum. Now, rather than being given a chance to convince an immigration judge that they should be given asylum in the U.S., they can be funneled into a separate process designed to quickly remove them to one of the countries that has signed an ACA.

In 2017, 3,741 El Salvadorans and 2,048 Hondurans won asylum in the U.S. The new rules make it all but certain that number will plummet as removals under the Guatemala ACA continue.

For those deported to Guatemala so far, the combination of danger and the prospect of navigating a confusing process with little help has already forced many to take their chances elsewhere. There are no restrictions on movement between the three countries, meaning that asylum-seekers who fled persecution in one can be easily reached by a person or group that tracks them down in another.

The ACLU’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The United States has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers have access to a safe haven from persecution,” said Katrina Eiland of the ACLU. “This policy does the exact opposite, sending them to a country that can’t adequately protect them through an absurd and illegal process.”

Published January 28, 2020 at 10:23PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2GrLTiN from Blogger https://ift.tt/2GxQSyu via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

[lodelss]

ACLU: Asylum-Seekers are Being Shipped to Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

Asylum-Seekers are Being Shipped to Guatemala in a New Policy Officials Call a “Total Disaster”

In late November, U.S. immigration authorities began deporting some Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala under a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum in the U.S.

But Guatemalan human rights workers say that their country’s asylum system isn’t capable of handling even the relatively small numbers that have been sent there so far, and that asylum seekers’ precarious status in the country has already pushed many to leave.

“They’re preferring to move on rather than staying here in a dangerous country,” said Rebeca Sanchez-Ralda, a Guatemalan attorney working with the U.S.-based organization Justice in Motion.

According to Sanchez-Ralda, insecurity in Guatemala and the low capacity of the government to process an influx of asylum applications means the new arrivals are faced with an impossible choice: stay, and face a new set of risks, or set off towards more familiar ones.

“They don’t have all the personnel to do the interviews or the shelters to put people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible at all.”

The policy is the latest of the Trump administration’s attempts to block asylum at the Southern U.S. border. Now, people who show up looking for protection in the U.S. can be shipped to Guatemala and told to apply for asylum there instead. But the U.N. has called Guatemala’s asylum process “nascent,” and advocates familiar with it say that nearly all the applications in the system right now have been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years.

“Over 500 asylum petitions have been pending for more than two years now,” said Amílcar Vásquez, a Project Director with Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, a Catholic group that works with the UN to provide services to migrants.

Vásquez says that asylum-seekers are given no support from the Guatemalan government while their applications are being processed.

“They’re going to become desperate without any guarantee of help or assistance from the state.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that as of mid-January 158 people had been sent to Guatemala under the new policy. So far, only Honduran and El Salvadoran nationals have been subjected to the new policy, including families with young children.

The three countries — collectively known as the Northern Triangle — are struggling with record levels of violence and instability. Decades of civil conflicts that were inflamed by covert U.S. involvement in the region, along with a street gang crisis that traces its origins to a wave of deportations from Los Angeles in the 1990s, have made them some of the most dangerous in the world.

Guatemala had the twenty-sixth-highest overall homicide rate in the world in 2017, along with the seventh-highest for females. Honduras has struggled with political violence since a 2009 military coup, and El Salvador now has the highest murder rate in the world, driven primarily by street gangs that have spread to neighboring countries.

“Violence is common here, including extortion and other types of crimes that exist in El Salvador and Honduras as well,” said Sanchez-Ralda. “We have kidnappings, killing of women, and hatred towards LGBTQ people.”

To enable the new deportations, the Trump administration signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales last July. Similar agreements have also been signed with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. U.S. officials have indicated that the program will soon be expanded to include asylum-seekers from other countries.

This means people fleeing persecution from any country in the world could be sent to Central America rather than have the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

Upon arrival in Guatemala, disoriented asylum-seekers encounter a rushed and confusing process where they have only 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum there. One Guatemalan official described the policy’s implementation thus far as a “total disaster.”

The ACLU filed suit on Jan. 15 in U.T. vs. Barr challenging the changes to asylum regulations that allow the ACAs — also known as “safe third country” agreements — to go into effect. The suit claims the policy violates U.S. and international law by failing to protect asylum-seekers from being exposed to harm in the three countries, which are among the most dangerous in the world.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s suit, identified as U.T., is a gay man from El Salvador who was disowned by his parents and threatened by an MS-13 gang member who solicited sex from him. After fleeing to the U.S. to claim asylum, he was instead deported to Guatemala, where he says officials told him it wasn’t safe for gay people and advised him to go to Mexico.

The ACLU’s complaint details how it is now nearly impossible for anyone subjected to an ACA to have their asylum claims heard in a U.S. court. The Trump administration has issued new rules that govern how someone is treated when they show up at the border and ask for asylum. Now, rather than being given a chance to convince an immigration judge that they should be given asylum in the U.S., they can be funneled into a separate process designed to quickly remove them to one of the countries that has signed an ACA.

In 2017, 3,741 El Salvadorans and 2,048 Hondurans won asylum in the U.S. The new rules make it all but certain that number will plummet as removals under the Guatemala ACA continue.

For those deported to Guatemala so far, the combination of danger and the prospect of navigating a confusing process with little help has already forced many to take their chances elsewhere. There are no restrictions on movement between the three countries, meaning that asylum-seekers who fled persecution in one can be easily reached by a person or group that tracks them down in another.

The ACLU’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The United States has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers have access to a safe haven from persecution,” said Katrina Eiland of the ACLU. “This policy does the exact opposite, sending them to a country that can’t adequately protect them through an absurd and illegal process.”

Published January 28, 2020 at 04:53PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2GrLTiN from Blogger https://ift.tt/2uHmTBe via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger