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U.S. “Operation Liberty Shield” Undermines Asylum Seekers’ Rights
(New York, March 26, 2003) The United States should rescind its new policy of detaining all asylum seekers from countries where terrorist organizations have been active, Human Rights Watch said today.


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“The Bush administration has criticized the human rights records of abusive regimes, such as Iraq. Yet, under this policy, the administration will jail people simply because they have fled those same abusive regimes.”

Alison Parker
Acting Director of Refugee Policy


 
The new policy, part of “Operation Liberty Shield” announced by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on March 18, requires the automatic and continued detention of all arriving asylum seekers from a list of thirty-four countries, including Iraq. Many of these countries have well-documented records of human rights abuse that prompt men, women and children to seek refuge in the United States.

“The Bush administration has criticized the human rights records of abusive regimes, such as Iraq,” said Alison Parker, a refugee protection expert at Human Rights Watch. “Yet, under this policy, the administration will jail people simply because they have fled those same abusive regimes.”

The new policy creates a blanket suspicion of links to terrorism based on nationality alone. Under the policy, for example, the United States would hold in detention a dissident who fled Iran simply because Iran is on the list of countries where there are active terrorist organizations. Any decision to detain an asylum seeker should instead be based on a case-by-case assessment of security risk by an impartial decision maker. Existing U.S. law provides ample authority for the government to detain any person arriving at a U.S. port of entry who may pose a security risk.

Under the new policy, asylum seekers could face months and even years behind bars before the immigration bureaucracy finally makes a decision on their claim. Mr. Ridge has stated that asylum seekers will be detained throughout the time that their cases are processed.

“People fleeing persecution should not be treated like criminals. Many asylum seekers have spent years in prisons in their home countries. With this new policy, once they reach the United States – supposedly a place of safety – they will be thrown in jail again for months, and perhaps years,” Parker said.

Under guidelines issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, detention of asylum seekers should be the exception, not the rule. Detention should not be used if there are effective monitoring mechanisms, such as reporting obligations that offer a viable alternative to detention. When detention is necessary, it should last for only a “minimal” period.

Prior to the new policy, asylum seekers arriving to the United States with inadequate documentation were detained, something that Human Rights Watch and other groups have criticized for years. However, even those asylum seekers were eligible for parole from detention, although parole was inconsistently granted.

Homeland Security officials have indicated that they will not apply the mandatory detention policy to affirmative asylum applicants, meaning those who apply for asylum not at a port of entry but from within the United States.

It was not clear whether the new policy would allow asylum seekers coming from the list of thirty-four countries to be considered for parole from detention. Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. government not to detain asylum seekers based on their countries of origin alone, and to allow all detained asylum seekers to apply for parole.