Wall Street Journal
By Joel Millman
October 17, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304795804579097473250468020?KEYWORDS=immigration
HARLINGEN, Texas—Floating across the Rio Grande on an inflatable raft, Francisco Antunez Gutierrez entered America illegally from Mexico in broad daylight this March. The U.S. Border Patrol spotted him a few minutes later, he says, and brought him here for detention.
But the U.S. hasn't deported Mr. Antunez, because he played a card that illegal border crossers are using in record numbers: He asked for asylum.
The 21-year-old says going home to Honduras would be a mortal risk because he witnessed a double homicide and fears the killers will target him. That argument persuaded a federal asylum officer that Mr. Antunez had a "credible fear" case, which allowed him to stay for asylum proceedings that may take many more months.
Mr. Antunez was among 27,546 migrants who made credible-fear claims after entering the U.S. illegally in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to Department of Homeland Security data. That is up from 10,730 such cases in fiscal 2012 and 3,273 in 2008.
A few of these people entered from Canada or as stowaways. But the majority entered via Mexico—some from as far away as Africa or Asia—border officials say. Claiming they face harm if returned home, they are flooding immigration courts and detention facilities along America's southern border, especially in South Texas.
Immigration judges eventually reject most of these asylum petitions. But some asylum seekers, who often go free on bail, use the lengthy process to disappear into America's underground economy.
Illegal crossers like Mr. Antunez are a subset of asylum seekers. The U.S. received 83,400 asylum applications of all types in 2012, many from people living in America on valid visas or applying from overseas, Homeland Security data show. Asylum seekers are a minority of the hundreds of thousands of people whom the U.S. catches sneaking in each year.
But the sharp rise in people who declare they have a credible fear of harm back home suggests that illegal crossers have found the process to be an effective tactic to remain in America, now that stronger border policing has made it harder to melt in north of the border.
"It's like the magic word," says Jodi Goodwin, a longtime immigration lawyer in Harlingen. "Say it and the government has to give you a credible-fear hearing."
Making a credible-fear declaration soon after crossing stops a U.S. agent from putting an immigrant into deportation proceedings and is most often a prerequisite of starting the asylum process.
Mr. Antunez says that, when caught, he told Border Patrol officers that "I need asylum" and declined to sign a waiver for voluntary departure that officials generally hand illegal crossers.
Mr. Antunez learned to do this from Facebook. Before he left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, he says, he corresponded with others on the social-networking site, where Honduran asylum seekers offer advice. He also consulted the U.S. government's immigration website.
The next step: an appearance before a federal asylum officer for a so-called Credible Fear Interview, in which the officer decides whether the case has merit.
An immigrant can seek asylum under five categories, based on fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinions or "membership in a particular social group."
Mr. Antunez's fear claim, like many from illegal crossers, fell loosely into the "social group" category. He says he told the officer he had seen a group of men shoot two drug dealers dead and that the gunmen later told him he was next if he didn't leave Honduras.
The asylum officer granted Mr. Antunez a credible-fear-interview "pass." In fiscal 2013, 85% of credible-fear claimants were granted a pass, Homeland Security data show.
That put him on track for an asylum hearing before an immigration judge. He was freed without bail on a conditional release to live with relatives in Texas, he says.
His next check-in with immigration officers is later this fall, he says, more than half a year after he was caught.
Until the end of the Cold War, asylum often involved immigrants fleeing communism. Today's asylum courts appear to continue favoring applicants from countries with political upheaval: The U.S. granted amnesty to more than 80% of applicants from Egypt, Iran and Somalia in 2012.
Prospects are slimmer for Mr. Antunez and other Central Americans, who constitute the majority of illegal crossers making credible-fear declarations. Of such claimants in fiscal 2013, 77% were from El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala, Homeland Security data show.
The U.S. granted asylum to 23% of Guatemalans and 14% of El Salvadorans in the total pool of asylum seekers—including people here legally—from 2002 through 2011, according to federal data released to The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act. There aren't data on the success rates among illegal crossers alone, but immigration lawyers say rates are roughly the same for all categories.
For Hondurans, like Mr. Antunez, the rate was 10%. He says he will face those odds.
Others choose not to. After granting credible-fear passes, many courts release claimants on bail or on their own recognizance until the next hearing date—due in part to insufficient detention facilities, immigration officials say.
That is the last authorities see of some. There aren't official data on how many asylum seekers go on the lam. In fiscal 2012, over 8,000 migrants that U.S. authorities detained and released failed to appear for their subsequent court dates, Justice Department data show; that likely includes many who were released from detention after expressing a credible fear of harm, immigration officials say.
The court in Harlingen reported that about 1,300 immigrants who were due to appear in 2012 after being released from detention failed to show up—69% of those required to appear—Justice Department data show. The rate improved somewhat as of mid-2013, to 48%.
Most such no-shows are credible-fear cases, says José Guerrero, a San Antonio immigration lawyer who frequently takes cases in Harlingen. For some illegal crossers, says Ms. Goodwin, the Harlingen lawyer, seeking asylum is "a speed bump" on the way toward absconding.
Harlingen court officers declined to discuss cases and referred all inquiries to the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review. A spokeswoman for that office declined to comment on activities of any single courtroom.
The wave of asylum seekers has swamped courts like the one in Harlingen, housed in a squat brick federal office building.
A muggy day in June presented a parade of asylum seekers preparing to appear before immigration judges—mostly immigrants from Latin America, but also from Nepal, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India and other faraway nations.
Some arrived with lawyers. Others in prison smocks appeared on a video monitor from a detention center. Each was entitled to a hearing.
One was Damian Estéban Tenesaca-Narvaez, 19, who said he crossed the Rio Grande illegally from Reynosa, Mexico, one night this March. American border officers caught him a few minutes later, he said. While under detention, he heard about asylum from other detainees and sought a credible-fear interview.
His claim: His father in Ecuador accuses him of breaking up his marriage, he said, "so he wants to kill me." He passed the interview and was allowed to move in with an aunt in Queens, N.Y., while he waited for further hearings, he said.
Mr. Tenesaca couldn't be reached for further comment this month. Federal records show his next court date is in November in San Antonio.
Another was Marvin Giovanni García Juarez, who said he crossed the Rio Grande illegally in March and was caught. His claim: If he returns to El Salvador, the 17-year-old said, he fears he will be murdered by the street gang that killed two of his brothers.
Mr. García couldn't be reached for further comment this month. Federal records show his next court date is later this month in Los Angeles.
One claimant waiting for an immigration-court appearance in June represented another face of the wave: applicants from far continents who use Mexico as a waypoint.
Tauhidul Islam Mazumder, a 42-year-old from Bangladesh, said he flew to South America and worked his way up to the Texas border, crossing the Rio Grande with a Mexican "coyote" guide. He turned himself in after wandering in Texas and in late June was awaiting a hearing, he said from a halfway house near Harlingan run by a religious order.
Mr. Mazumder said his credible-fear claim stems from being persecuted for his membership in a political party that lost national elections. "I think I am a genuine case," said Mr. Mazumder, who showed scars on his neck he said were from a politically motivated beating.
Asked this weekend what was happening with his case, he replied: "Nothing, nothing. They gave me time."
Asylum proceedings for illegal crossers can drag on for a half-year or more. Homeland Security has deployed the 278 asylum officers it supervises across the country to wade through credible-fear declarations to meet the tide. This summer, it hired 93 more to keep pace with a flow that threatens to overwhelm detention capacity, immigration officials say.
They consider claims not just from illegal crossers, but also from claimants who walk up to immigration desks at border posts or airports. There were 8,480 such "port of entry" asylum applicants in fiscal 2013, up from 3,201 in fiscal 2012.
Mr. Antunez, the Honduran immigrant, says the U.S. asylum system "has been worth it." While it may be many months more before he knows if he will earn asylum, he says, "it's the only way to preserve my life."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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