A Denver center that offered counseling and legal help to asylum-seeking immigrants who said they had been tortured in their home countries has closed after losing its federal grant. Now hundreds in Colorado — among the 50,000 who seek asylum in the U.S. each year — must look elsewhere for help. Torture-survivor programs in Atlanta, Jersey City, Chicago, San Diego and Detroit also have had federal funding cut and are struggling to stay open.
Rights groups are challenging the U.S. position that violence by Mexican drug cartels does not entitle a refugee to haven.
The drug-related violence plaguing Mexico has led to a surge in asylum requests from Mexicans seeking safe haven in the United States. The number of asylum petitions from Mexican citizens increased from 1,331 in 2005 to 2,231 last year. While most are denied because the U.S. does not recognize fear of violence as grounds for automatic admission, the approval rate has grown during that time from 5 percent to 13 percent. At least 68 Mexican asylum cases have been received since October 2007 in Denver’s Immigration Court — more than from any other country — with more than 3,749 cases in courts nationwide, federal records show. Lawyers who represent asylum-seekers point to the approximately 6,000 people killed over the past year in Mexican drug wars and worry that a failure to gran t more requests will lead to more deaths. Among the asylum-seekers: a former Mexican police officer named Jesus, who asked that his last name not be used for fear of repercussions against his family and friends still in Mexico. Three days after drug-cartel gunmen killed his police partner, Jesus resigned from the force. He fled northern Mexico to Denver with his family. They entered the United States legally as tourists. Now Jesus is seeking political asylum. “If I go back,” he said, “I’d be waiting for death.”
The son of Congo prime minister Patrice Lumumba, slain in 1961, speaks at DU. He’s on tour “to renew relations.”
The son of slain African hero Patrice Lumumba — the Congo prime minister assassinated after a U. S.-backed 1960 coup — has been touring U.S. universities in an effort to get Americans focused on his ravaged homeland.
Local-hire Iraqi interpreters maimed during U.S. combat missions can’t fathom why the nation won’t pay for the high-tech prosthetics.
Maimed Iraqi interpreters showing up in U.S. cities such as Denver wonder why nobody — neither the government nor its contractors — is assuming long-term responsibility for them and hundreds of other seriously wounded interpreters who served U.S. forces in Iraq.
Consider the case of Diyar al-Bayati, who risked his life as the eyes and ears for soldiers on more than 200 combat missions, coaxing suspicious Iraqis, forging alliances and — beyond his interpreter duties — regularly taking up arms to fight alongside U.S. troops. When a roadside bomb in a 2006 ambush blew off his legs, al-Bayati kept firing at his unit’s attackers until he lost consciousness.
Today fellow refugees ferry al-Bayati around Salt Lake City, hoisting him in and out of a van. The military won’t pay for maimed interpreters to get the same high-tech prosthetics provided to U.S. soldiers. Al-Bayati, 22, has learned America may give only limited citizenship, housing and medical treatment.
“They say ‘limited,’ ” he said. “Why was our service in Iraq not ‘limited’? When they asked us to do missions, we didn’t say: ‘Our job is limited.’ ”
Yet al-Bayati acknowledges he’s lucky, one of a dozen or so wounded interpreters who’ve found shelter in U.S. cities including Denver. Hundreds more are hiding or running for their lives in Iraq and neighboring Jordan.
Tibetans from around the United States converge on San Francisco to try to stop China’s Olympic torch. Street action. For Tibetan-Americans, the day became a strategic battle of controlling tempers. They find they must draw on every bit of Buddhist teaching they had and the warning of their leader, the Dalai Lama, who has threatened to resign if pre-Olympic protests turn violent.
Tough rules delay cases Anti-terrorism efforts require stricter proof of persecution, including documents that can “reasonably” be obtained.
Jailed and tortured in Ethiopia, Samuel Tafesa made it to Mexico,
then waded across the Rio Grande into the United States.
Now in Denver, he’s begging for asylum protection, claiming that
Ethiopian police beat him with sticks on the bottoms of his feet
and held his head under water, trying to coerce information about
fellow members of an opposition political party.
“I’m afraid to go back to Ethiopia,” he said. “If I go back,
I’ll be killed.”
For Tafesa and tens of thousands of other asylum-seekers, sanctuary
in America has become harder to attain. U.S. officials are
subjecting them to increasingly rigorous scrutiny, government
officials and legal experts say.
New anti-terrorism measures require stricter proof of persecution,
including documents that can “reasonably” be obtained.
Tafesa, 22, called back to Ethiopia repeatedly, asking his mother
to get what she can for his lawyer, Michael Litman.
Today’s higher standard of proof makes cases more complex and
prolongs them, with government attorneys sending documents to a
Homeland Security forensics lab for testing.
“We have a tradition, but we want to make sure people seeking
(asylum) have a rightful entitlement,” said Mike Everitt, a unit
chief in the lab near Washington, D.C.
The new measures are contributing to a record immigration-court
backlog - 3,370 cases pending in Denver, a third involving asylum,
federal statistics show. That’s double Denver’s pending caseload
six years ago.
Department of Justice officials said 166,200 cases are pending in
immigration courts nationwide, including 33,194 in Los Angeles,
8,546 in Chicago and 9,455 in Orlando, Fla. In 2000, 125,764 cases
were pending.
“Overburdened” system
Dana Marks, a sitting judge in California and president of the
National Association of Immigration Judges, said dozens more judges
are needed.
The system is “unbelievably overburdened,” squeezing judges’
ability to make life-or-death decisions, Marks said.
“Why are we treating the asylum system this way? If we pride
ourselves in America for treating refugees right, why aren’t we
providing resources to ensure they get prompt and fair treatment?”
Marks said.
Now, fewer people are applying for asylum, though the reasons for
the drop aren’t clear.
Some 54,452 applications were received last year in immigration
courts, down from 74,627 in 2002 and 84,904 in 1997, records show.
Adjudicators for the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Services, who often see asylum-seekers first, received 36,502
applications last year, down from 65,201 in 2002 and 149,000 in
1995, according to a senior USCIS official who spoke on condition
of anonymity, in accordance with agency policy.
In Denver, about one in three cases handled is approved. Asylum
experts say it’s too early to gauge whether the new standards for
proof will change that percentage.
USCIS adjudicators approved 27 percent of cases they handled this
year, down from 43 percent in 2001, according to the senior
official. In immigration courts, stats show 23 percent of
applications processed last year were approved, up from 20 percent
in 2002.
Previously, asylum-seekers often were accepted solely on the basis
of government “country condition” reports and testimony that
judges found to be credible and persuasive.
Today’s higher standards requiring documentation that could
“reasonably” be obtained “change the burden of proof,” the
official said. But “there’s still the allowance” that an
applicant who can’t obtain documents can win asylum if deemed
credible, he said.
“Out of reach for many”
One problem caused by the more frequent demand for documents is
that hiring document and medical experts raises legal costs, said
Regina Germain, legal director at the Rocky Mountain Survivors
Center and author of a legal text on asylum law.
“I fear recent changes … could put asylum out of reach for many
people who flee with little more than the clothes on their backs,”
Germain said.
In Tafesa’s case, an Addis Ababa police document his mother sent
says he was imprisoned for 17 days in 2005 for being a member of
the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party. The document accuses
him of involvement in “illegal demonstrations” and “promoting
unhealthy propaganda and causing conflict of people against
people.”
It says he was released from prison on the condition he cease all
political activity and check in weekly, which he failed to do. It
warns: “The police department will track you and your family
down.”
The government is vetting those documents. His case is scheduled
for a hearing in May.
Meantime, he works under a temporary permit, washing rental cars at
Denver International Airport for $8.85 an hour that he uses mostly
for legal fees.
His father and brother in Ethiopia have gone missing, and his
6-year-old son, Mathais, is bewildered, Tafesa said before work
Friday.
“He asks me: ‘Where are you?’ I tell him I’ll be there one day,”
Tafesa said. “What can I do?”
New filings in the citizenship battle of a blind Palestinian
computer whiz show that the FBI completed its background check a
year ago but that Homeland Security officials then failed to rule
as required under federal law.
The government also has admitted it failed to comply fully with a
federal judge’s order to turn over the FBI background check
results.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller on Thursday reordered the
government to provide full results of the FBI check on Colorado
resident Zuhair Mahd - to be sealed and delivered by the end of
next week.
Government lawyers say the FBI never reveals background-check
results whether they are positive or negative. Revealing results
“may interfere with ongoing law enforcement or national security
investigations or interests,” according to U.S. Attorney Troy
Eid’s latest filing.
Eid on Thursday said: “The government will comply with the court
order.”
Department of Homeland Security citizenship spokesman Chris Bentley
declined to comment on the delays.
The case has revealed irregularities in how the government carries
out security checks on citizenship applicants under a system
instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mahd is among tens of
thousands of applicants nationwide who have passed tests but have
been left in limbo.
After applying for citizenship in September 2004 and passing tests
three months later, Mahd waited and waited, told by citizenship
officials that the FBI hadn’t completed his background check. In
May 2006, he filed a lawsuit to force action and won this year when
Miller ordered the FBI to complete the check in 45 days.
Then, citizenship officials rejected Mahd’s application after he
refused to submit to an additional videotaped interview.
A computer expert who pioneered text-to-speech software, Mahd, 34,
is representing himself. He was born totally blind to Palestinian
refugees in Jordan and came to the United States as a teenager with
the help of U.S. officials. He has worked for IBM and on government
contracts, living in the country legally for 17 years.
Judge Miller has asked government lawyers why Mahd shouldn’t be
naturalized immediately.
U.S. Attorney Eid has argued Miller doesn’t have jurisdiction.
Federal judges once handled citizenship cases, but this duty was
transferred in the 1990s to the Department of Justice in an effort
to unburden courts.
U.S. immigration law says, however, that if applications of
immigrants who pass citizenship tests aren’t handled in 120 days,
the applicants can go to federal court and ask judges to decide.
Mahd said he’s bewildered to learn the FBI check has been done for
a year. He has appealed the denial.
“For all I know, they think I’m a heinous criminal or a
mischievous person. I’d like to clear this,” he said.
Over the next three weeks, the government plans to bring more than
1,400 refugees from Iraq to Denver and other U.S. cities - opening
doors that have been closed since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
By next year, the number of Iraqi refugees may swell to 12,000,
according to officials at the U.S. Departments of State and
Homeland Security.
Between 1992 and 2002, the U.S. accepted an average of 2,800 Iraqi
refugees a year. Since then, the annual average has dropped to
191.
The accelerated flow is in response to pressure to ease a worsening
humanitarian crisis, State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper
said.
“We want to take care of the people who have helped us, especially
those who might feel under threat,” Cooper said.
United Nations officials last week estimated one in seven Iraqis
have left their homes.
More than 2 million have made it to neighboring countries - the
largest Middle East displacement since the 1948 creation of
Israel.
The first refugees set to arrive in Denver are Nazar Al Taei, his
wife and their three children. They are scheduled to fly from
Jordan today.
Al Taei worked as a translator for the American military. His legs
were injured, leaving him with nerve problems, resettlement-agency
documents show. Fearing for their lives, the family fled to
Jordan.
Before the war in Iraq, Al Taei and his wife worked as
Russian-language teachers.
Others slated for resettlement in Denver include a woman with
breast cancer who hasn’t seen her husband since last year and
another who worked as an interpreter and secretary and is suffering
from serious depression and anxiety, the documents show.
An apartment off Colorado Boulevard has been furnished and stocked
for the Al Taei family. Local school officials await their
children, said Ferdi Mevlani, director of Ecumenical Refugee and
Immigration Services.
This Denver group is working on contract to guide about a dozen
Iraqi newcomers this month.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands more Iraqis clamor to get out,
according to U.N. and government officials.
“My family now, they are on the target,” said Omar Al Rahmani,
47, a Baghdad city councilman who translated for U.S. forces and
visited Denver twice on intergovernmental exchanges.
“My daughter’s school is 150 meters from my home. Even that is too
far,” Al Rahmani said in a telephone interview Friday.
“I don’t feel she’s safe, even though the school has four
guards,” Al Rahmani said. “I just want my family to be out in a
secure place. That’s all I want.”
For the U.S., accepting Iraqi refugees presents the major challenge
of screening out possible terrorists, said Paul Rosenzweig, deputy
assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.
The Bush administration’s plan is to admit 10,000 to 12,000 Iraqis
a year, starting next year, Rosenzweig said.
“We’re doing enhanced background and biometric checks on people
coming out of Iraq to do the best we can to be sure those who are
admitted are deserving refugees, while at the same time screening
out those who might pose problems to us because of connections to
al- Qaeda in Iraq or other terrorist organizations,” he said.
By the end of this month, total Iraqi arrivals for 2007 should
reach 2,000, said Todd Pierce, spokesman for the State Department’s
migration bureau.
In the first seven months of 2007, some 190 Iraqi refugees were
admitted.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees officials are
negotiating with the U.S. to accept as many of the 2 million Iraqi
refugees as possible, U.N. spokeswoman Wendy Young said.
The commission asked U.S. officials to admit 10,110 U.N.- screened
Iraqis this year - nearly three times the 3,586 Iraqis referred to
all other countries.
The fleeing Iraqis all managed to escape to neighboring countries
such as Jordan, where authorities last week closed their borders
because they are swamped with refugees.
“We rely on the United States as a key partner in refugee
resettlement,” Young said.
Inside Iraq, an estimated 2.2 million more uprooted Iraqis face
dwindling options for escape. U.N. officials say 50,000 a month are
fleeing their homes.
Some in Congress still oppose accepting any Iraqi refugees.
“I don’t trust the (government) to vet them correctly,” said U.S.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
Others, like U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., are pushing to help
more Iraqis out of a volatile situation.
“We’ve created it,” Perlmutter said. ” It’s a tragic situation.
And I don’t think we’ve come to grips with it.”
Perlmutter said he plans to introduce a bill that would admit up to
2,000 Iraqis who worked for U.S. diplomats and contractors in
Iraq.
“People who have assisted the United States should be welcome here
and be able to avoid persecution in Iraq, if that’s what they
choose,” he said.
Denver is seen as an ideal resettlement site because it has robust
agencies to help refugees from around the world, a healthy economy
and the capacity to treat torture victims, said Paul Stein,
coordinator of Colorado’s state refugee program and chairman of a
national advisory panel.
“By not making an effort to resettle more Iraqis, you’d definitely
feed into that notion of hypocrisy and double standards,” Stein
said.
About 41,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. last year among an
estimated 1.8 million legal and illegal immigrants.
Refugees, who are deemed unable to return safely to their home
countries, receive government assistance for 90 days.
Some Colorado leaders advocate resettling many more from Iraq.
“We’re directly affected by what’s happening in Iraq and the rest
of the world. … I’d like to see what tangible we can do to help
fulfill our moral obligations,” said state Rep. Joe Rice, who
served as a civil-affairs soldier in Iraq and hears regularly from
Iraqis wanting out.
But Rice said he’s also deeply conflicted. Many of those fleeing
Iraq “are the very people who are needed to try to stabilize
things, to build a new society there,” he said.
“If all the good people leave, who’s left to build a new
society?”
Judge exasperated at new delays in immigrant’s citizenship quest
Zuhair Mahd, a blind Palestinian computer programmer, has been in the U.S. legally for 17 years and passed his citizenship test in 2004.
A federal judge bristled with what he called “sheer disbelief” at
the government’s failure to follow his order in the case of a blind
Palestinian immigrant stalled in his quest for citizenship.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller ordered federal authorities to
produce proof of an FBI background check of Colorado-based computer
expert Zuhair Mahd within 10 days.
Then, Miller said, he’ll decide whether he will rule on Mahd’s
long-delayed citizenship application - rather than leave it to the
Department of Homeland Security.
“This man’s been waiting since 2004,” Miller said. “This man has
rights.”
The federal court action Friday in Denver gave a glimpse into what
have become widespread problems in the government’s
background-check program for all citizenship applicants to guard
against terrorism, started after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Last month, Miller ordered the government to prove why Mahd
“should not be immediately naturalized.” In March, he ordered the
FBI to complete Mahd’s background check within 45 days - after Mahd
filed a federal lawsuit.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid notified Miller that the check was done,
with results forwarded to immigration officials, yet no
documentation had been given to the court.
On Friday before Judge Miller, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth
Weishaupl argued that the judge has no jurisdiction to handle this
case.
“I have the jurisdiction to determine whether my order has been
followed,” Miller said.
“What you are saying is: ‘You have to have a name check.’ But then
there’s nothing to show whether it’s been done. … I am not
satisfied,” he said.
Eid later issued a written statement: “We are confident that the
FBI completed the name check within the time frame mandated by the
court, and we look forward to proving this fact to the judge.”
Federal judges rarely rule on citizenship applications. In the
early 1990s, that responsibility was transferred to immigration
officials overseen by the Department of Justice so that courts
wouldn’t be bogged down.
But now immigration cases increasingly end up back in federal
court. Judges nationwide face multiplying cases filed by
citizenship applicants who have passed tests - but still aren’t
approved. The FBI is struggling to process hundreds of thousands of
background checks.
U.S. law says immigrants who pass citizenship tests must have their
cases handled in 120 days. Otherwise, applicants can go to court
and ask judges to decide.
Mahd, 33, who has legally been in the U.S. for 17 years, passed his
citizenship test in December 2004.
He was born blind to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, and came to
the United States as a teenager with the help of U.S. officials. A
computer programmer, he has worked for IBM and on government
contacts, pioneering Arabic text-to-speech software.
After Mahd won his case compelling the FBI and Homeland Security to
handle his application, immigration officials demanded that he
provide additional documents and submit to videotaped interviews.
Mahd at first refused, saying he feared a fishing expedition. He
asked agents to explain why the additional demands were legally
justified.
In June, he complied and presented four years of tax records,
travel documents, employment data back to 1998 and more. He still
refused to be interviewed. This month, his application was denied.
Mahd has appealed that denial within Homeland Security’s
immigration system.
On Friday, Judge Miller said he wanted to see certified background
check results, not merely a declaration that the FBI check has been
done.
If the background check involves matters of national security,
Miller said, he will review the documents in his office.
Mahd, as a self-represented noncitizen, would not be able to attend
that meeting.
“I’m confident the judge would evaluate this properly,” he said
Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Weishaupl told Miller she needed to have
his request for background-check documentation in writing.
“You will note, of course, the irony of you wanting something in
writing,” Miller said, assuring her it would be done in the
tradition of open government.
“I have no hesitation to put my orders in writing for all to
see,” he said.
IN LIMBO THREE YEARS
A blind computer expert who passed his citizenship test in ‘04 recently won a suit forcing his background check’s completion.
The government began a last-ditch effort to deny citizenship for a
blind Palestinian computer whiz in Colorado who recently won a
lawsuit forcing the FBI to complete his long-stalled security
background check.
Homeland Security officials now have blocked Zuhair Mahd’s
three-year citizenship quest because he wouldn’t submit to
additional interviews after the FBI check was done, said Robert
Mather, Denver district director of U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services.
“We weren’t able to move forward with an approval process because
we didn’t have all the information we requested,” Mather said in
an interview.
This denial escalates a standoff that already had spun out of the
immigration system into federal court - where judges nationwide
increasingly face cases of citizenship applicants who passed tests
but still aren’t approved.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller in Denver last week ordered the
government to prove why Mahd “should not be immediately
naturalized.” A hearing is set for Aug. 31.
Federal judges rarely grant citizenship. But U.S. law says
immigrants who pass citizenship tests must have their cases handled
in 120 days. Otherwise, applicants can go to court and ask judges
to decide.
Mahd, 33, who has been in the U.S. legally for 17 years, passed his
citizenship test in December 2004.
Born blind to Palestinian immigrants in Jordan, he came to the
country as a teenager with the help of U.S. officials. Today he
works for the University of Colorado helping a blind engineering
graduate student adapt.
He worked previously for IBM and on government contracts.
He said that he’s been forthcoming with immigration officials who
this year, long after their 120-day deadline, demanded that he
provide additional documents and submit to a videotaped interview.
At first, he refused but then in June complied and presented four
years’ worth of tax records, travel documents, employment data back
to 1998, and more. But he still refused to be interviewed,
according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and his
application was denied.
“They’re not entitled to the interview or the documents. The
documents were provided as a goodwill gesture,” Mahd said.
“They were going to deny (the application), no matter what I did
or didn’t do. All they are doing is buying time and splitting
hairs, and I don’t think that’s good for any of us.”
Miller on March 22 ordered the FBI to complete Mahd’s stalled
background check after Mahd filed a federal lawsuit on his own -
his first legal case.
This case set a regional precedent as the FBI grapples with a
growing backlog of 440,000 uncompleted background security checks,
which were instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to guard
against terrorism.
Prosecutors on Tuesday asked Miller to cancel this month’s hearing,
arguing that the government has obeyed his order.
Mahd’s application “has been denied,” U.S. attorney spokesman
Jeff Dorschner said. “He needs to now go through the process of
appealing that denial” with immigration officials.
Mahd said he would prefer to rely on Judge Miller in federal court.
Government officials “have broken a law, and they’re acting in a
vindictive manner,” Mahd said.
For 20 years, journalist Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. A staff writer for The Denver Post, he's currently focusing on environment-related news in the Rocky Mountain West.
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