The right of asylum is an ancient juridical concept, under which a person persecuted by one's own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, such as another country or church official, who in medieval times could offer sanctuary. This right was recognized by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Hebrews, from whom it was adopted into Western tradition. René Descartes fled to the Netherlands, Voltaire to England, and Thomas Hobbes to France, because each state offered protection to persecuted foreigners.
The Sanctuary movement was a religious and political campaign in the United States that began in the early 1980s to provide safe-haven for Central American refugees fleeing civil conflict. The movement was a response to federal immigration policies that made obtaining asylum difficult for Central Americans.
The United States recognizes the right of asylum for individuals as specified by international and federal law. A specified number of legally defined refugees who either apply for asylum from inside the U.S. or apply for refugee status from outside the U.S., are admitted annually. Refugees compose about one-tenth of the total annual immigration to the United States, though some large refugee populations are very prominent. Since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the U.S. than any other nation and more than two million refugees have arrived in the U.S. since 1980. In the years 2005 through 2007, the number of asylum seekers accepted into the U.S. was about 40,000 per year. This compared with about 30,000 per year in the UK and 25,000 in Canada. The U.S. accounted for about 10% of all asylum-seeker acceptances in the OECD countries in 1998-2007. The United States is by far the most populous OECD country and receives fewer than the average number of refugees per capita: In 2010-14 it ranked 28 of 43 industrialized countries reviewed by UNHCR.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Predrag Stevic, 467 U.S. 407 (1984), was a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that an alien seeking to avoid deportation proceedings by claiming that he would be persecuted if returned to his native land must show a "clear probability" that he will be persecuted there.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987), decided that the standard for withholding of removal set in INS v. Stevic, was too high a standard for applicants for asylum to satisfy. In its place, and consistent with the standard set by the United Nations, the Court in Cardoza-Fonseca held that an applicant for asylum in the United States only needs to demonstrate a "well-founded fear" of persecution, which can be met even if the applicant does not show that it is more likely than not he will be persecuted if returned to his home country.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415 (1999), examined a doctrinal question last presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca. In Aguirre-Aguirre, the Court determined that federal courts had to defer to the Board of Immigration Appeals's interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Abudu, 485 U.S. 94 (1988), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court shifted the balance toward adjudications made by the INS and away from those made by the federal courts of appeals when aliens who had been ordered deported seek to present new evidence in order to avoid deportation. The Court ruled that courts must review the Board of Immigration Appeals's decision to deny motions to reopen immigration proceedings—the name of the procedural device used to present new evidence to immigration officials—for abuse of discretion.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Doherty, 502 U.S. 314 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court case which confirmed that the Attorney General of the United States has broad discretion to reopen deportation proceedings, as well as other adjudications heard before immigration courts.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001), is a United States Supreme Court case involving habeas corpus and INA § 212(c) relief for deportable aliens.
Immigration equality is a citizens' equal ability or right to immigrate their family members. It also applies to fair and equal execution of the laws and the rights of non-citizens regardless of nationality or where they are coming from. Immigration issues can also be a LGBT rights issue, as government recognition of same-sex relationships vary from country to country.
Negusie v. Holder, 555 U.S. 511 (2009), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving whether the bar to asylum in the United States for persecutors applies to asylum applicants who have been the target of credible threats of harm or torture in their home countries for refusing to participate further in persecution. The petitioner, Daniel Negusie, claimed he was forced to assist in the mistreatment of prisoners in Eritrea under threat of execution, and that because any assistance he rendered was provided under duress he should still be eligible for asylum.
HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 31 is a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom concerning two men, from Iran and Cameroon respectively, claiming asylum in the United Kingdom on the grounds of their homosexuality. The men's claims had previously been turned down on the basis they would not face persecution in their own countries if they would conceal their sexuality. The appeal therefore centred on the question as to whether the men on their return could reasonably be expected to tolerate this requirement of discretion; the so-called 'discretion' or 'reasonable tolerability' test. Interventions were made by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Well-Founded Fear is a 2000 documentary film from directors Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini. The film takes its title from the formal definition of a refugee under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as a person who deserves protection, "owing to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.” The film analyzes the US asylum process by following several asylum applicants and asylum officers through actual INS interviews.
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZMDS, is a landmark Australian judgment of the High Court. The matter related to immigration law, jurisdictional error and illogicality as a ground of judicial review.
Credible fear is a concept in United States asylum law whereby a person who demonstrates that he or she has a credible fear of returning to his or her home country cannot be subject to deportation from the United States until the person's asylum case is processed.
Expedited removal is the term for a process related to immigration enforcement in the United States during which certain aliens are denied entry to and/or physically removed from the United States, without going through the normal removal proceedings. Whereas the legal authority for expedited removal allows for its use against most unauthorized entrants who have been in the United States for less than two years, its rollout so far has been restricted to people seeking admission and those who have been in the United States for 14 days or less, and excludes first-time violators from Mexico and Canada.
Deborah Eve Anker is an American Professor of Law and Director of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, which she co-founded in 1984. The HIRC is a clinical and academic program that engages students in representation, and teaches institutional context, legal doctrine and theory. She has been a Harvard academic for over 35 years. Anker is the author of the treatise, Law of Asylum in the United States, and she has co-drafted gender asylum guidelines and amicus curiae briefs. Her scholarly work on asylum is widely cited, frequently by international and domestic courts and tribunals, including the United States Supreme Court.
Particular social group (PSG) is one of five categories that may be used to claim refugee status according to two key United Nations documents: the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. The other four categories are race, religion, nationality, and political opinion. As the most ambiguous and open-ended of the categories, the PSG category has been the subject of considerable debate and controversy in refugee law. Note that just as with the other four categories, membership in a PSG is not sufficient grounds for being granted refugee status. Rather, to be granted refugee status, one must both demonstrate membership in one of the five categories and a nexus between that membership and persecution one is facing or risks facing.
American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh 760 F. Supp. 796, formerly American Baptist Churches v Meese, is a settlement reached on January 31, 1991 that resulted from a class action lawsuit against the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), and the Department of State. (DOS). The suit was filed in 1985 by a coalition of religious organizations, refugee legal assistance organizations, and numerous human rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the National Lawyers Guild.(NLG) Although the case originally stated two different groups of plaintiffs, various religious organizations involved in the Sanctuary movement and Central American refugees, after changes were made to criminal laws formerly used to prosecute these religious organizations, the focus of the suit was centered more specifically to claims of discrimination against Central American refugees in asylum seeking processes. This, they argued, was in direct violation of the tenets of the Refugee Act of 1980, which sought to create uniform criteria by which to review cases in which individuals fleeing political persecution and humanitarian crises would become eligible for asylum. After five years, the settlement secured temporary protected status (TPS) for many Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants, providing them with among other things, de novo asylum interviews, stays from deportation and work authorization.
