PICO-UNION : Political Asylum Plan Raises Concerns

A proposal to reform political asylum laws may do little to alleviate the backlog of cases and has raised concerns that the appeals process will be curtailed, according to local immigrant-rights organizations.

The legislation, proposed by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), calls for “tough but fair” changes, including speeding up the application process for political asylum and transferring jurisdiction over claims from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the Department of Justice.

Under the plan, anyone seeking political asylum would have his or her application reviewed within 45 days of filing. The asylum officer could then grant asylum, call for an additional hearing or reject the application and order the person deported without further review. Currently, anyone applying for political asylum is required to file upon entering the country and there is no time limit for cases to be reviewed.

“People are going to feel like they don’t have time to appeal or will feel like they have to apply immediately, and at first this will only flood the asylum process even more than it is now,” said Alyssa Simpson, directing attorney for the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN).

Simpson said the proposal could reduce the backlog of cases only if more officers were hired to review cases. “What is needed is funding for temporary judges and officers,” she said. “There is a serious backlog of asylum applications, and that means we have clients who have very good claims and their families continue to live in danger, and they can’t get them over here because they can’t get a hearing.”

Although the measure calls for an increase in funds to hire more judges and officers, it does not specify the source of the funding.

Officials of both CARECEN and El Rescate, another Pico-Union social services and immigrant-rights agency, called the proposal a step in the right direction but said it fell short of addressing the issue of reform, including additional training for asylum officers.

“How does someone prove that they’ve received death notes?” said Jaime Flores, community economic development coordinator for El Rescate. “It’s not something a person who is fleeing can carry on them or that you have mailed to you. And a lot of us are still scared of telling INS officials our story because we’re afraid of the repercussions for our families who remain back home.”

The proposal also drew criticism for a provision that would allow officials to detain a small number of applicants--those who pose a risk of fleeing while awaiting decisions on their application--on military bases.

“The hardest part of the proposal is people who are coming here are afraid of being tortured or killed, and under the proposal, they would come here seeking political asylum only to be held in military bases,” Flores said.

Becerra, a member of the House Subcommittee on International Law, Immigration and Refugees, is expected to formally present the proposal to the Judicial Committee this week.