-20 II. PROPOSED PLANS FOR MOVEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT A. ADMISSIONS PROCEDURES 1. Eligibility Criteria Applicants for refugee admission into the United States must meet all of the following criteria: -R The applicant must meet the definition of a refugee contained in the The applicant must be among those refugees determined by the President The applicant must be otherwise admissible under United States law; and The applicant must not be firmly resettled in any foreign country. Although a refugee may meet the above criteria, the existence of the U.S. refugee admissions program does not create any entitlement for that person to enter the United States. The admissions program is a legal mechanism for admitting a refugee when the applicant is among those persons of particular interest to the United States. With respect to persons applying overseas for admission to the United States as refugees, an initial review is performed to evaluate cases based on U.S. national interests, the refugees' situation in temporary asylum, the conditions from which they have fled, and other humanitarian considerations. Applicants who meet the criteria specified above and who fall within the priorities established for the relevant nationality or region, are presented to the INS for determination of eligibility for admission under Section 101(a)(42) of the INA. 2. The Worldwide Priorities System The worldwide priorities system sets guidelines for the orderly management of refugee admissions into the United States within the established annual regional ceilings. The issue of whether a person is a refugee under U.S. law, and the priority to which a refugee should be assigned for resettlement are separate and distinct. Assignment to a particular priority does not make that individual either more or less a refugee although it may reflect an assessment of the urgency of the need for resettlement. Indeed, refugees could well be qualified for the resettlement program of another country. Just as qualifying for refugee status does not confer a right to resettlement in the United States, assignment to a particular priority does not entitle a person to acceptance into the United States refugee program. The U.S. refugee priorities system sets guidelines for the orderly management of refugee admissions into the United States within the established annual regional ceilings and is subject to change during the fiscal year. - 21 Refugee Processing Priorities - FY 1993 Priority One. Compelling concern/interest: exceptional cases of (a) refugees who are in immediate danger of loss of life and for whom there appears to be no alternative to resettlement in the United States, or (b) refugees of compelling concern to the United States such as former or present political prisoners and dissidents. Priority Two. Former U.S. Government (U.S.G.) employees: refugees employed by the U.S.G. for at least one year prior to the claim for refugee status. This category also includes persons who were not official U.S.G. employees, but who for at least one year were so integrated into U.S.G. offices as to have been in effect and appearance U.S.G. employees. Priority Three. Family reunification: refugees who are spouses, unmarried sons, unmarried daughters, or parents of persons in the United States. (The status of the anchor relative in the United States must be one of the following: U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident alien, refugee, asylee or member of certain groups of public interest parolees). Priority Four. Other ties to United States: (a) Refugees employed by U.S. foundations, U.S. voluntary agencies or U.S. business firms for at least one year prior to the claim for refugee status; (b) Refugees trained or educated in the United States or abroad under U.S.G. auspices; Priority Four (Iran and Cuba). In addition to (a) and (b) above: (c) Refugees who have served in positions of leadership or played a conspicuous role within a religious denomination whose members are subjected to discrimination, including the clergy, prominent laymen, those who have served in denominational assemblies, governing bodies or councils; (d) Refugees who because of their minority religious affiliations have been deprived of employment, have been driven from their homes, have had their business confiscated or looted, have been denied educational opportunities available to others similarly situated in the same area, or have been denied pensions that would otherwise be available; and (e) Refugees who have become targets of persecution because of a perceived identification with the United States or the other nations of the West (including Israel). Priority Four (East Asia). In addition to (a) and (b) above: (f) Persons previously in the civil service or armed forces of the former governments of Indochina who were associated with U.S.G. policies or U.S.-supported programs; (g) Persons who played a meaningful role in the social, economic, political, religious, intellectual, or artistic life of the former societies of Indochina, including such persons as professors, philosophers, monks, or other transmitters of the cultural traditions of these societies. Priority Five. Additional family reunification: refugees who are: (a) married sons or married daughters of persons in the United States; (b) unmarried siblings of persons in the United States; (c) married siblings of persons in the United States; (d) grandparents of persons in the United States; (e) grandchildren of persons in the United States; or (f) more distantly related individuals who are part of the family group and dependent on the family for support. (The status of the anchor relative in the United States must be one of the following: U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident alien, refugee, asylee or member of certain groups of public interest parolees). - 22 Priority Six. Otherwise of special humanitarian concern: other refugees whose admission is in the national interest. 3. INS Refugee Processing Authority for refugee processing is provided in Section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The Attorney General has delegated this authority to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to admit any refugee who is not firmly resettled in a third country, who is determined to be of special humanitarian concern, and who is admissible as an immigrant. In both overseas refugee processing and domestic asylum proceedings, INS has the statutory role of decision maker, determining who meets the requirements for refugee status. INS Overseas Operations The Immigration and Naturalization Service's overseas offices have a variety of responsibilities administered by three District Offices located in Bangkok, Mexico City, and Rome. The overseas officer corps currently consists of 21 officers in the Bangkok District, including suboffices in Manila, Singapore, Seoul, and Hong Kong; ten officers in the Mexico City District, including suboffices in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Ciudad Juarez, and Tijuana; and 20 officers in the Rome District, including suboffices in Frankfurt, Vienna, Athens, Moscow, London, Nairobi, and New Delhi. One of the most important responsibilities of INS' overseas program is refugee processing. The percentage of time each office devotes to this activity depends on the refugee workload, as well as the staffing pattern and priorities within the office. The permanent staff are augmented by temporary duty personnel from stateside offices, as needed. Circuit rides to processing posts are arranged by the office having geographic jurisdiction over the post. Presentation to INS In general, a refugee applicant proceeds through the following steps before his interview with an INS officer: an applicant is determined to be in need of protection and resettlement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); he or she is referred to a voluntary agency (VOLAG) or Joint Voluntary Agency (VA) for pre-screening; if the applicant is of a nationality of special humanitarian concern and within a processing priority eligible for U.S. consideration, the VOLAG or JVA prepares the case for submission to INS by assisting the applicant in filling out a request for refugee status, a biographić information sheet and other documents. - 23 Processing priorities are administrative guidelines designed to order the refugee admissions process within the established ceilings. Priorities do not address the quality of an individual's claim to refugee status, but rather are an assessment of the relative degree of U.S. interest in resettling an applicant, made by ranking an applicant's ties to the United States based on factors such as relatives in the United States and prior employment by the U.S. Government or private U.S. firms. Nationalities of special humanitarian concern to the United States are determined annually by the President in consultation with Congress. The Eligibility Determination Eligibility for refugee status is decided on an individual, case-by-case basis. A personal interview of the applicant is held by an INS officer. The interview is non-adversarial and is designed to elicit information about the applicant's claim for refugee status. Questions are asked about the reasons for the applicant's departure from his country, his political or religious beliefs/activities, problems he may have had or fears having to do with the authorities in his home country. A determination of well-founded fear of persecution requires judging both objective and subjective elements of an applicant's claim. Conditions in the country of origin are taken into consideration and the applicant's credibility is assessed. Persecution is the most difficult element of the refugee definition to analyze and apply. There is no internationally accepted definition of the term "persecution," but it includes a threat to life or freedom. Discrimination in the treatment of various groups is not, per se, persecution but at times an accumulation of discriminatory measures may involve such significant denials of opportunities to participate in society that it constitutes a threat to freedom. Economic hardship is not itself a basis for eligibility for refugees status but persecution may take the form of economic reprisals, such as denial of the opportunity to work. Post-Interview Processing After interview, applicants found eligible for refugee status must have a medical examination and sponsorship assurance. A refugee admission number, subtracted from the annual ceiling, is allocated. Transportation arrangements are made through the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the refugee signs a travel loan, promising repayment of the cost of airfare. At the U.S. Port of Entry, INS admits a refugee to the United States and authorizes employment. After one year, a refugee is eligible for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident. Five years after admission, a refugee is eligible for naturalization. - 24 Asylum Issues Last year, INS implemented new asylum regulations published in FY 1990, which established not only a specialized corps of asylum officers, but an entirely new organizational structure for processing asylum applications. Regional asylum offices were opened at seven sites with a newly-hired corps of 82 Asylum Officers who inherited a backlog of 114,000 applications for asylum. During FY 1991, approximately 60,000 new applications were submitted; receipts are expected to be even higher in FY 1992. An additional workload burden was imposed by the December 1990 settlement in the case of American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh. Under the terms of the settlement, INS will provide asylum interviews to 45,000 Guatemalans and up to 200,000 Salvadorans over the next several years. During much of FY 1992, trained Asylum Officers were detailed to Guantanamo Bay to pre-screen Haitian migrants, leaving some asylum offices with fewer than half of normal staffing levels. Some 68 new Asylum Officers were hired and underwent a four-week training course in March. A total of 150 adjudicating officers and 24 supervisors are now onboard, ready to face the challenges ahead." INS has regional asylum offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Newark, Arlington, Miami and Houston, and the asylum program is administered from these seven locations, under the direction of INS Headquarters. The Resource Information Center exists within the Asylum Branch to provide asylum adjudicators with easily accessible information on the human rights situations in refugee producing countries of origin. The Center produces country profile reports as well as periodic "Alerts" on new or evolving situations of direct interest and impact on the work of the Asylum Officers. The Center is located with the main Asylum Office headquartered in Washington, DC, and is linked to it and to each of the seven Asylum Office sites. Section 209 (b) of the INA permits the adjustment of status of persons previously granted asylum in the United States who have been in the United States as refugees for at least one year and who continue to qualify as refugees. The INS intends to adjust to the status to permanent resident alien 10,000 persons during FY 1993. |