Archive: Asylum Seekers Get Varied Treatment Except When it Comes to Jail

Excerpt from “Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal” by US Commission on International Religious freedom (Feb. 8, 2007).

Consequently, the outcome of an asylum claim appears to depend not only on the strength of the claim, but also on which officials consider the claim, and whether or not the alien has an attorney. Similarly, while DHS has developed criteria relating to the release of detained asylum seekers, the implementation of these criteria also varies widely from place to place.

There are a few areas, however, where the Study identified problems other than inconsistent practices. For example, with regard to detention, the Study found that asylum seekers are consistently detained in jails or jail-like facilities, which the experts found inappropriate for non-criminal asylum seekers. There were, however, a small number of exceptions to this rule, the most prominent being a contract facility in Broward Country, Florida, which represents a secure, but appropriate and non-correctional, environment for non-criminal asylum seekers.