UNITED STATES
Officers working for the US Citizenship and Immigration Service say they are being used as pawns in the Government’s tough new asylum protocols at the Mexican border, forced to reject applicants who are in clear danger of persecution or worse.
One said he interviewed an asylum-seeker from Central America who had been threatened by drug cartels and believed his life was in danger.
“This was a guy truly afraid he was going to be murdered and, frankly, he might be,” the officer told journalists.
However, the officer “wasn’t even allowed to make an argument” that the asylum-seeker should be allowed to stay in the US to pursue his case.
The officer had no choice other than to sign a form stating the migrant wasn’t likely to be persecuted in Mexico, and therefore could be safely returned.
Many asylum officers are concerned that the integrity of their office is at stake — along with their names.
“We were enlisted to give our blessing through these interviews,” another officer said.
“It’s our names on the forms, but it seems like all of this is lip-service.”
Many officers have raised concerns with their union about how the new procedures have changed their jobs.
They all spoke on guarantees of anonymity because they feared retaliation from superiors.
For decades, officers made judgement calls on whether a person could stay in the US to await an asylum hearing.
Under the new rules, officers say they effectively have no power to do so.
“I’m not adjudicating that case,” one officer said.
“It’s like someone else sticking their hand inside me, like a glove.”
The officers see a future US asylum system that has all but turned its back on people fleeing persecution in their home countries.
Washington, DC, 4 May 2019
