{"id":21746,"date":"2019-07-25T13:46:53","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T17:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21746"},"modified":"2019-07-25T13:46:55","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T17:46:55","slug":"asylum-media-immigration-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/07\/25\/asylum-media-immigration-enforcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Asylum Officers, Do What America Pays You to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The Washington Post<\/a><\/em> recently featured an op-ed titled, \u201cI Became an Asylum Officer to Help People. Now I Put Them Back in Harm\u2019s Way.\u201d It was written by Charles Tjersland, Jr., an Asylum Officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Tjersland claims that this is a\n\u201cdemoralizing time\u201d for asylum officers, arguing that the Trump\nadministration\u2019s \u201cRemain in Mexico\u201d policy makes a \u201cmockery\u201d of their \u201cmission.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is that he doesn\u2019t know what his mission really is. To a casual observer, it appears that Mr. Tjersland sees himself as an advocate for foreign nationals and believes that his job is to let in as many asylum seekers as possible \u2013 even those fleeing crime<\/a> and bad economies<\/a>, rather than actual persecution. But that self-image doesn\u2019t square with an asylum officer\u2019s job description. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asylum officers work for the United States<\/a>. Like every other Executive Branch employee, their first responsibility is to the American public, not to foreign nationals. And it is profoundly distasteful when federal officers exploit their position as a platform for criticizing a sitting president\u2019s policy choices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Especially when they are flat out\nwrong. Mr. Tjersland implies that both U.S. immigration law and international\nhuman rights law require the U.S. to let asylum-seekers await the adjudication\nof their claims in the U.S. and that the Trump administration is violating both\nmoral and legal obligations to aid the oppressed. But that isn\u2019t even close to\nbeing true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. is a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the legal instrument that defines both refugee status and political asylum. However, as the International Justice Resource Center<\/a> notes, \u201cThe 1951 Convention does not define how States parties are to determine whether an individual meets the definition of a refugee. Instead, the establishment of asylum proceedings and refugee status determinations are left to each State party to develop.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consistent with its obligations\nunder the 1951 Convention, the U.S. has provided a comprehensive framework for\ngranting relief to the persecuted \u2013 and has taken in more refugees and asylees\nthan all other nations combined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, in order to assure American sovereignty, Congress formulated asylum as a discretionary form of relief. As courts have consistently held from Matter of Salim<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in 1982, to the more recent Patpanathan<\/a><\/em> decided in 2014, <\/em>the U.S. government is not required<\/em> to grant asylum to anyone, even people who are clearly subject to persecution in their home country. And the U.S. may decide whether or not to furnish protection based on its own public safety, national security and foreign affairs interests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the 1951 Convention, domestic immigration law is also silent about how massive groups of asylum seekers are to be handled during the pendency of their applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n