This post is by Mikhail Sebastian Okunuga, a coffee connoisseur, world traveler, writer, and memoirist whose work explores statelessness, exile, and the quiet resilience of survival. Drawing from years of displacement and travels across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific—including prolonged immigration detention—his award-winning memoir Stateless in Paradise has received both the International Impact Book Award and The Prestigious International Hope Book Award, honoring its powerful testimony to endurance, dignity, and the human search for belonging.
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The Asylumist – Asylum and Its Discontents in the United States
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Last week, an ICE agent in Minneapolis fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three. Ms. Good was in her vehicle protesting an ICE enforcement action in her city. Most people who have seen the various videos (including me) view the killing as completely unjustified or–at a minimum–believe that the incident requires a fair investigation to determine exactly what happened. Unfortunately, that did not stop President Trump and his team from quickly labeling Ms. Good a domestic terrorist and professional agitator, who the ICE agent shot in self defense.
The killing and the Administration’s callous response have sparked mass protests in Minnesota and throughout the United States.
It’s difficult to know what to say about this terrible shooting and the subsequent attacks on Ms. Good, but for me, the incident fits a familiar pattern. The Trump Administration lies about anyone it does not like, and then uses those lies to justify harming that person. The difference here is that the harm came first and the lies came afterward. Also, the video evidence allows us to see for ourselves how the Administration is mischaracterizing events.
A recent Board of Immigration Appeals case highlights the Trump Administration’s latest tactic for blocking asylum seekers from protection in the United States. In Matter of C-I-G-M- & L-V-S-G-, the Board held that two Guatemalan migrants were barred from asylum, Withholding of Removal, and relief under the Torture Convention, and that they could be sent to a third country–in this case, Honduras–to pursue a protection claim there.
The decision illustrates a new trend in Immigration Court where DHS (the prosecutor) files to pretermit (deny) asylum and order the non-citizen deported. The basis to pretermit is that the applicant could seek asylum in a safe third country pursuant to an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with that country. The Immigration Judge may then deport the person to the third country, where they can supposedly seek protection.
Here, we will discuss the ACAs and how they are affecting asylum seekers.
Who am I to know The Secret to Happiness, you ask. Mankind has struggled with this question for eons, yet here I am, purporting to know The Answer. What kind of pretentious jerk would make such a claim, especially on New Year’s Day? These are fair points. In my defense, I am currently hung over. I am also not much in the mood to write about all the bad news that’s fit to print–and there is a never-ending supply of that, which I presume we’ll get to soon enough. No, today is a holiday, the beginning of a new year, a time for optimism even–especially–when realism calls for pessimism. And the fact is, in my years of observing asylum seekers, people who have suffered much and are under continuous stress, I have learned The Secret to Happiness, which I will reveal to you forthwith.
I recently met with the family of a man from El Salvador who we’ll call Jorge. Jorge was detained by ICE and is facing imminent deportation. He has been in the United States for more than 10 years, has no criminal convictions, and has several relatives with legal status, including his child (a U.S. citizen) and his mother (a permanent resident). Jorge had faced danger in El Salvador: criminals tried to force him to join their gang. They also murdered his uncle. Based on these facts, Jorge is legally eligible to apply for asylum, Withholding of Removal, relief under the UN Convention Against Torture, and Cancellation of Removal. The question for him and his family is whether fighting his case and trying to avoid deportation is a good idea.
In the aftermath of an Afghan asylum seeker’s attack on members of the National Guard, the Trump Administration began a wide-ranging crackdown on non-citizens from Afghanistan and other “banned” countries, as well as on asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants.
The most recent iteration of these efforts is the decision by USCIS–justified by “security” concerns–to reduce the validity period for certain categories of Employment Authorization Document (EAD) from five years to 18 months. In combination with prior changes, the shortened EAD will cause tremendous pain to many vulnerable people.
After the terrible shooting incident last week where a CIA-trained Afghan national killed one member of the National Guard and critically injured another, President Trump declared that he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.” He also vowed to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
We do not yet have a full picture of how these words will be put into operation, but several government agencies have already announced new restrictions on asylum and on people from Afghanistan and other “banned” countries. Here, we’ll look at what has been said so far, and try to understand how the new policies will affect asylum seekers and asylees.
Last summer, the Trump Administration implemented a travel ban to block or restrict nationals from certain countries from entering the United States. The ban was justified based on “national security” or because the targeted countries had higher-than-average visa overstay rates.
Now, according to a report from the New York Times and my conversations with Asylum Officers, it seems that people from banned countries who are already in the U.S. will face additional restrictions on receiving asylum and obtaining a Green Card.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Trump Administration’s plan to appoint 600 Temporary Immigration Judges to help address the 3.5-million case backlog in Immigration Court. As far as we know, all the new judges will be U.S. military lawyers from the Judge Advocate General’s corps.
To facilitate these appointments, EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our country’s Immigration Courts–has substantially relaxed the requirements to serve as an Immigration Judge (IJ), and now, IJs do not need any experience with the immigration law to become a judge. The new appointments come on the heels of mass terminations at EOIR, which saw about 120 of the nation’s 700 IJs terminated or “voluntarily” retired.
What to expect from the new judges? Will they be Trump’s willing executioners, denying cases as fast as they can docket them? Or will they be more fair, enforcing the law regardless of their political bosses’ preference? EOIR recently announced the first class of Temporary Immigration Judges (TIJs) and here, we’ll look at their backgrounds to see what this might portend for their judgeships.
Asylum seekers are eligible for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) while their application is pending. Although EADs are issued for 5 years, most applicants need to renew their employment authorization because the wait is so long.
Up until last week, if you filed to renew before your current EAD expired, you received an automatic 540-day extension of the current card. This was important, since USCIS often processes renewals slowly, and without the extension, many asylum seekers would lose the ability to work. But now, a new rule has eliminated the automatic EAD extension for asylum seekers (and others), and so when your card expires, you can no longer work lawfully.
Last time, we discussed how standards of evidence have become more challenging under the Trump Administration. Here, we’ll talk about some other ways the government is trying to prevent applicants from receiving asylum in the United States.
Since the advent of the Trump Administration, it has been getting more and more difficult to win asylum. Decision-makers in court and at the Asylum Office are more suspicious of fraud, have higher expectations for evidence, and are looking for sneaky ways to deny applications. They are also less forgiving of inconsistencies and innocent mistakes. Add to that an overall environment where non-citizens are under threat, and the asylum process has become much more fraught. How then can you best prepare an asylum application during these challenging times?
Here and in part 2, we’ll examine some common problems faced by asylum seekers and how they can be overcome.
The Asylum Trap: Could Your Case Be Dismissed for Failure to Pay the $100 Annual Fee?
by Jason Dzubow
The Roman Emperor Caligula had a habit of frequently changing statutes and penalties during his reign. When people complained that they needed to know the law in order to avoid the punishments, Caligula posted his rules high up on a pillar, so no one could read them. That way, the law remained unknowable and the Emperor could continue to do as he pleased. This is basically the state of immigration law in the United States today.
The government’s most recent machination is the $100 annual fee for asylum. The One Big Beautiful Bill created this new fee, but as of now, there is no mechanism for most applicants to pay. So what happens with your case if you can’t make the payment? Will it be dismissed? If you have an asylum application pending at the Asylum Office, the Immigration Court or the Board of Immigration Appeals, what should you do to protect yourself?
Last week, a 29-year-old man opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas. One detained migrant was killed and two others were injured. The shooter died of a self-inflicted wound.
DHS quickly concluded that this was “an attack on ICE law enforcement,” and the Acting U.S. Attorney for the region noted the “tragic irony” that migrants were harmed rather than ICE agents. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called out “the far-left,” and said that comparing ICE to the “Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences.”
For an Administration that has consistently dehumanized, demonized, and lied about non-citizens, the idea of blaming far-left rhetoric for the Dallas attack is richly hypocritical. So too is the “irony” that migrants were harmed instead of ICE agents, which assumes that the murderer was somehow trying to help immigrants. Despite all this, I think it’s worth exploring whether anti-ICE rhetoric is contributing to increased violence and whether there might be more effective ways to talk about the government’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.
It’s not easy these days to find good news in immigration world. Families torn apart, Constitutional protections under siege, humanitarian migrants sent to random third countries, work places raided, detention centers filled beyond capacity, &tc., &tc. It’s difficult to keep up with all the negative developments, but two decisions from earlier this month stand out–one from the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and another from the U.S. Supreme Court. These decisions are particularly pernicious and will potentially harm millions of people.