Asylumist

Board of Imitation Appeals

New rules will make the BIA into a rubber stamp for IJ decisions and will almost entirely eliminate due process for non-citizens at the administrative appellate level. asylumist.com/2026/02/17/b...

More Asylum Seekers Are “No Shows” in Immigration Court Recent data reveals that increasing numbers of asylum seekers are failing to appear for their Immigration Court hearings and effectively abandoning their applications to remain in the United States…

More Asylum Seekers Are “No Shows” in Immigration Court

In FY2025, the first year of the Trump Administration, the number of abandoned cases in #immigrationcourt soared to 51,446. www.asylumist.com/2026/02/04/m...

USCIS Begins Re-Verifying — and Sometimes Detaining — Refugees Earlier this month, USCIS announced the commencement of Operation PARRIS (Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening) in Minnesota with plans to later expand across the count…

USCIS Begins Re-Verifying — and Sometimes Detaining — Refugees

What does USCIS’s “war on fraud” means for #Refugees and other immigrants? How should you prepare in the event that your case is subject to re-verification? www.asylumist.com/2026/01/28/u...

Stateless in Paradise This post is by Mikhail Sebastian Okunuga, a coffee connoisseur, world traveler, writer, and memoirist whose work explores statelessness, exile, and the quiet resilience of survival. Drawing from y…

Stateless in Paradise

A new book by Mikhail Sebastian Okunuga explains that #Statelessness is not a relic of history. It is happening now. And it deserves to be seen. www.asylumist.com/2026/01/21/s...

ICE, Lies, and Videotape Last week, an ICE agent in Minneapolis fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three. Ms. Good was in her vehicle protesting an ICE enforcement action in her city. Most people who hav…

ICE, Lies, and Videotape

The killing or Renee Good fits a familiar pattern. The Trump Administration lies about anyone it does not like, and then uses those lies to justify harming that person. #ice www.asylumist.com/2026/01/14/i...

Asylum Cooperative Agreements and the Fiction of the Safe Third Country A recent Board of Immigration Appeals case highlights the Trump Administration’s latest tactic for blocking asylum seekers from protection in the United States. In Matter of C-I-G-M- & L-…

Asylum Cooperative Agreements and the Fiction of the Safe Third Country

Today will discuss the Trump Administration’s latest tactic for blocking #asylum seekers from protection in the United States. www.asylumist.com/2026/01/07/a...

The Secret to Happiness (for Asylum Seekers and Everybody Else) Who am I to know The Secret to Happiness, you ask. Mankind has struggled with this question for eons, yet here I am, purporting to know The Answer. What kind of pretentious jerk would make such a c…

The Secret to Happiness (for Asylum Seekers and Everybody Else)

In my years of observing #asylum seekers, people who have suffered much and are under continuous stress, I have learned The Secret to Happiness, which I will reveal to you forthwith. www.asylumist.com/2026/01/01/t...

Fight or Flight? I recently met with the family of a man from El Salvador who we’ll call Jorge. Jorge was detained by ICE and is facing imminent deportation. He has been in the United States for more than 10 …

Fight or Flight?

The first decision in nearly every removal case is whether to do the case at all. #asylum #immigration www.asylumist.com/2025/12/17/f...

USCIS Restricts Work Permits… Again In the aftermath of an Afghan asylum seeker’s attack on members of the National Guard, the Trump Administration began a wide-ranging crackdown on non-citizens from Afghanistan and other &#822…

USCIS Restricts Work Permits… Again

#USCIS has reduced the validity period for certain categories of Employment Authorization Document (#ead) from five years to 18 months. www.asylumist.com/2025/12/10/u...

“Halting” Asylum and “Re-Examining” Previously-Approved Cases After the terrible shooting incident last week where a CIA-trained Afghan national killed one member of the National Guard and critically injured another, President Trump declared that he would &#8…

“Halting” Asylum and “Re-Examining” Previously-Approved Cases

In the aftermath of the terrible National Guard shooting last week, the government is enacting further restrictions on #asylum seekers, asylees, #refugees, and #greencard holders. www.asylumist.com/2025/12/03/h...

The Travel Ban Comes Home Last summer, the Trump Administration implemented a travel ban to block or restrict nationals from certain countries from entering the United States. The ban was justified based on “national …

The Travel Ban Comes Home

According to reports, people from "travel ban" countries who are already in the U.S. will face additional restrictions on receiving #asylum and obtaining a #GreenCard. www.asylumist.com/2025/11/26/t...

Let’s Meet the New Temporary Immigration Judges Perhaps you’ve heard about the Trump Administration’s plan to appoint 600 Temporary Immigration Judges to help address the 3.5-million case backlog in Immigration Court. As far as we kn…

Let’s Meet the New Temporary Immigration Judges

The Trump Administration’s plan to appoint 600 Temporary Immigration Judges to help address the 3.5-million case backlog in Immigration Court. The new judges are all lawyers with the U.S. military. www.asylumist.com/2025/11/12/l...

USCIS Restricts Work Permits for Asylum Seekers Asylum seekers are eligible for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) while their application is pending. Although EADs are issued for 5 years, most applicants need to renew their employment a…

USCIS Restricts Work Permits for #asylum Seekers

The Agency has ended automatic extensions for work permit renewals. Here's what you can do about it. www.asylumist.com/2025/11/05/u...

Trump-Proofing Your Asylum Application (Part 2) Last time, we discussed how standards of evidence have become more challenging under the Trump Administration. Here, we’ll talk about some other ways the government is trying to prevent appli…

Trump-Proofing Your Asylum Application (Part 2)

Let's talk about some ways the government is trying to prevent applicants from receiving #asylum in the United States. www.asylumist.com/2025/10/29/t...

Trump-Proofing Your Asylum Application (Part 1) Since the advent of the Trump Administration, it has been getting more and more difficult to win asylum. Decision-makers in court and at the Asylum Office are more suspicious of fraud, have higher …

Trump-Proofing Your Asylum Application (Part 1)

Since the advent of the Trump Administration, it has been getting more and more difficult to win #asylum. Here, we'll discuss how you can best prepare an asylum application during these challenging times. www.asylumist.com/2025/10/22/t...

The Asylum Trap: Could Your Case Be Dismissed for Failure to Pay the $100 Annual Fee? The Roman Emperor Caligula had a habit of frequently changing statutes and penalties during his reign. When people complained that they needed to know the law in order to avoid the punishments, Cal…

The Asylum Trap: Could Your Case Be Dismissed for Failure to Pay the $100 Annual Fee?

If you have a pending #asylum application at the Asylum Office, the Immigration Court or the BIA, what should you do to protect yourself? www.asylumist.com/2025/10/08/t...

Violence, Terror, and Hypocrisy: The Dallas ICE Shooting Last week, a 29-year-old man opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas. One detained migrant was killed and two others were injured. The shooter died of a self-inflicted wound. DHS quickly co…

Violence, Terror, and Hypocrisy: The Dallas #ice Shooting

Does anti-ICE rhetoric contribute to increased violence in our country? www.asylumist.com/2025/10/01/v...

The Latest Bad News (and a Few Silver Linings) It’s not easy these days to find good news in immigration world. Families torn apart, Constitutional protections under siege, humanitarian migrants sent to random third countries, work places…

The Latest Bad News (and a Few Silver Linings)

Two decisions from earlier this month–one from the Board of Immigration Appeals and another from the U.S. Supreme Court--stand out as particularly pernicious and will potentially harm millions of people.#asylumseekers www.asylumist.com/2025/09/17/t...

Freedom Isn’t Free – It’s Very Expensive By now, you’ve probably heard that USCIS and EOIR (the Executive Office for Immigration Review – the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts) have dramatically increa…

Freedom Isn’t Free – It’s Very Expensive

#uscis and #EOIR have dramatically increased fees for many applications, making it harder for non-citizens to obtain status in the U.S. and harming the non-profits that assist them. www.asylumist.com/2025/09/10/f...

Do You Have a Pulse? Congratulations! You’re Qualified to be an Immigration Judge! A new final rule from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Court system, has substantially relaxed the requirements for servin…

Do You Have a Pulse? Congratulations! You’re Qualified to be an Immigration Judge!

A new rule has substantially relaxed the requirements for serving as a Temporary Immigration Judge.

Also, we're now calling them "aliens" instead of "noncitizens." #EOIR

www.asylumist.com/2025/09/03/d...

The USCIS Thought Police and How “Wrong” Thinking Can Get You Deported A new memo from USCIS states that anti-American and antisemitic ideologies are a basis to deny most types of immigration applications, including asylum. The meaning of these terms is vague (at best…

The USCIS Thought Police and How “Wrong” Thinking Can Get You Deported

Here are the top 10 anti-American and antisemitic ideologies that can kibosh your immigration application with #USCIS. www.asylumist.com/2025/08/27/t...

Dishonest State Department Reports Seek to Undermine Asylum Claims For me, the worst part about the Trump Administration’s immigration policies is not that they are detaining and deporting more people, or that they are changing the rules to make immigration …

Dishonest State Department Reports Seek to Undermine Asylum Claims

Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers rely on these Reports to make their decisions, and when the Reports minimize human rights abuses, it becomes more difficult to obtain #asylum. www.asylumist.com/2025/08/14/d...

Green Card Interviews for Asylees – or – The End of the “Pause” Perhaps you’ve heard the rumors–reported in the press but never verified by USCIS–about a “pause” on Green Cards for asylees and refugees. While the exact details of t…

Green Card Interviews for Asylees – or – The End of the “Pause”

A new memo from #uscis clarifies when a Green Card interview is required, and seems to signal an end to the "pause" on Green Card processing for asylees and refugees. www.asylumist.com/2025/08/06/g...

Female Asylum Seekers Need Not Apply A new decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) seeks to restrict the ability of women to obtain asylum on account of gender-based harm. See Matter of K-E-S-G-, 29 I&N Dec. 145 (BIA 20…

Female Asylum Seekers Need Not Apply

A new decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals seeks to restrict the ability of women to obtain #asylum on account of gender-based harm. www.asylumist.com/2025/07/30/f...

Should I Stay or Should I Go? On the Morality of Working in Immigration Enforcement The case of Adam Boyd, an ICE attorney who resigned for “moral” reasons has recently gotten some attention. Mr. Boyd noted that “We still need good attorneys at ICE. There are dru…

Should I Stay or Should I Go? On the Morality of Working in Immigration Enforcement

For employees of #ice, #DHS, #DOJ, #uscis, and other immigration enforcement agencies, is it possible to continue in the job and still be a moral person? www.asylumist.com/2025/07/23/s...

The One Big Beautiful Bill and Asylum Last week, the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. The law dramatically increases funding for ICE, immigration detention, and border securit…

The One Big Beautiful Bill and Asylum

Here, we will discuss some of the changes in the OBBB and how they may affect #asylum seekers. www.asylumist.com/2025/07/08/t...

More Court Chaos: The DHS Push to Re-Open Closed Cases In my office, we’ve recently been receiving motions from DHS (the prosecutor in Immigration Court) asking to reopen administratively closed cases and place them on the court’s active do…

More Court Chaos: The DHS Push to Re-Open Closed Cases

DHS is re-opening hundreds of thousands of old Immigration Court cases. Here, we will discuss what is happening and what to do if you currently have an administratively closed case. www.asylumist.com/2025/07/02/m...

Cancellation of Removal: An Alternative for Some Asylum Seekers Asylum seekers and other non-citizens who have been in the United States for 10+ years and who have certain U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident family members may be eligible for Cancellation…

Cancellation of Removal: An Alternative for Some #asylum Seekers

Asylum seekers who have been in the U.S. for 10+ years and who have certain U.S. citizen or LPR family members may be eligible for Cancellation of Removal, which allows you to get a Green Card. www.asylumist.com/2025/06/25/c...

I’m With the Banned Last week, President Trump announced a new travel ban on foreign nationals from 19 different countries. Here, we’ll look at the effects of the ban, with a particular focus on asylum seekers and asy…

I’m With the Banned

Last week, President Trump announced a new travel ban on foreign nationals from 19 different countries. Here, we’ll look at the effects of the ban, with a particular focus on #asylum seekers and asylees. www.asylumist.com/2025/06/11/i...

Hi Dennis - I hope all is well. Any plans to be in DC any time soon?