Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

Asylum adjudication is often the invisible frontline in the struggle by oppressed groups to gain recognition for their plights. Through this process, individual people must tell their stories and try to show that they are genuine victims of persecution rather than simply illegal immigrants attempting to slip through the system. In 2002, because the world had not yet acknowledged the nature of the calamity from which they were escaping, many Darfurian asylum cases would have relied on the ability of each individual to convince government offices to believe their stories. They would have had to be deemed “credible,” or they would be in danger of being sent home. Today, a similar process is playing out for youths fleeing gang violence in Central America. The 2014 State Department Human Rights Report on Guatemala, for instance, includes three sentences about gangs recruiting “street children.” But recent arrivals pleading to stay in the U.S. have described a far more dire situation.

Human rights problems are often sources of public controversy because it is often debatable–at least at first–whether claims of persecution are real, or if they are exaggerated to serve a particular agenda. But while these debates play out in the media and in official statements, they also play out with individual lives on the line. Individual lives are affected as government officials decide whether to accept the claims of persecution submitted by migrants trying to avoid deportation. These adjudications are typically hidden from public view, and have long been typified by a highly subjective approach. Implicit assumptions about how foreign countries work and, most importantly, how a genuine victim would act or talk can lead to inconsistent, unreliable decisions with grave consequences for people in danger.

Publication Citation

16 Geo. J. Int’l Aff. 123 (2015).

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