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10 Refugee Reports 1 (1989)

handle is hein.immigration/refgrpt0010 and id is 1 raw text is: Reports A News Service of the U.S. Committee for Refugees 1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 920 Washington, DC 20005 (2 Volume X, Number 1 .02) 347-3507 January 27, 1989 INS SEEKS TOUGHER APPROACH ON ASYLUM, WORK AUTHORIZATION, TRAVEL, BUT FACES LEGAL CHALLENGE Efforts by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to prevent onward travel for asylum seekers applying at the Harlingen INS office near the Mexican border have been halted at least until the end of January by a U.S. district judge. The INS policy under challenge was put in place on December 16 in response to a dramatic increase in the number of Nicaraguan and other Central American asylum seekers entering the United States and applying for asylum at the INS office in Harlingen (see Refugee Reports, Vol. IX, No. 12). Before December 16, the INS office in Harlingen had allowed asylum applicants filing there to travel on- ward, so that their cases could be adjudicated at other INS offices, many of which are located in metropolitan areas where the applicants would have vastly improved chances of finding legal assistance and other support. By requiring that asylum applications be examined at the office where they were first submitted, the new policy, in effect, made further travel impossible. Extra INS examiners and support staff were sent to Harlingen to examine the applications quickly. The plan was that every applicant would be interviewed by an INS examiner before being granted work authoriza- tion. The examiner could deny work authorization if he found the claim to be frivolous. The INS policy did not provide for a means to feed or shelter those who would be forced to wait near Harlingen, an economically depressed area on the southernmost tip of Texas, while their asylum appli- cations were pending. Soon after the policy took effect, the numbers of Central American asylum seekers in the Harlingen area grew, and their living space became increasingly cramped, uncomfortable, and unsanitary. Hundreds were staying in makeshift camps in fields, occupying aban- doned buildings, crowding downtrodden hotels, and overwhelming church shelters. U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela halted the INS policy on January 9 by issuing a temporary restraining order. That order freed hundreds of Central Americans to move to Miami, Los Angeles, and other places where IN THIS ISSUE: On this, our tenth anniversary issue, Refugee Reports looks at several policies now being considered that are of critical impor- tance to the future of asylum and refugee admissions. In the lead story, Bill Frelick examines the internal discus- sions at INS that led to a change in policy with respect to Nicaraguans. In the first Recent Development, Court Robinson looks at the factors that weighed in an Adminis- tration decision to shift 7,000 FY 89 refugee admission numbers from Asia to the Soviet Union ................ 1 * Update ............... 5 * Recent Developments Numbers shift from South and Southeast Asia to the USSR; Canada embarks on more restrictive asylum policy; Court bars return of Afghan refugees to India ........... 6 Meetings and Conferences * Resources ........... 14 * Statistics Planned Adjustments to FY 89 Funded Regional Refugee Admissions Ceilings ........ 16

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