“Although the government acknowledged at oral argument that not all rock throwing amounts to a “serious nonpolitical crime,” the Board’s fleeting assessment of Berhane’s situation offers little explanation for why he falls on the wrong side of the rock-throwing line. And although the Board’s definition of a “serious nonpolitical crime” is well established (whether the criminal nature of the conduct outweighs its political motives), the Board and the courts of appeals have not issued any decisions (to our knowledge) in which rock throwing was the principal criminal act. For these reasons and those elaborated below, we vacate the Board’s decision and remand the matter to the Board for further consideration and further explanation of its position.” Berhane v. Holder, June 4, 2010.
Archive for the ‘Asylum’ Category
Sixth Circuit on “serious nonpolitical crime”
Friday, June 4th, 2010Obama’s Aunt Zeituni Onyango Granted Asylum
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010President Obama’s African aunt has been granted asylum to stay in the United States, the Associated Press reports.
Zeituni Onyango, the half-sister of Mr. Obama’s late father, moved from Kenya to the United States in 2000. She first applied for asylum in 2002, citing violence in Kenya, according to the AP. Onyango’s request was rejected in 2004, but she stayed in the country, living in public housing in Boston.
When it was reported in 2008 that Onyango was possibly in the country illegally, Mr. Obama said he had no knowledge of her status.
Onyango testified on her own behalf in U.S. Immigration Court in Boston earlier this year. Her attorney’s announced that she was granted asylum in Cleveland today, the AP reports.
Immigration courts face largest backlog in history
Monday, March 15th, 2010“The nation’s immigration courts are choked by the largest backlog of pending deportation and asylum cases in history under the Obama administration, with the “slow pace” of judicial hiring contributing to an average 14-month delay in court action, according to a Syracuse University-based research institute.”
2009 Country Reports now available
Friday, March 12th, 2010-03/11/10 Preface
-03/11/10 Overview and Acknowledgements
-03/11/10 Introduction
Africa
-03/11/10 Angola
-03/11/10 Benin
-03/11/10 Botswana
-03/11/10 Burkina Faso
-03/11/10 Burundi
-03/11/10 Cameroon
-03/11/10 Cape Verde
-03/11/10 Central African Republic
-03/11/10 Chad
-03/11/10 Comoros
-03/11/10 Congo, Democratic Republic of the
-03/11/10 Congo, Republic of the
-03/11/10 Cote d’Ivoire
-03/11/10 Djibouti
-03/11/10 Equatorial Guinea
-03/11/10 Eritrea
-03/11/10 Ethiopia
-03/11/10 Gabon
-03/11/10 Gambia, The
-03/11/10 Ghana
-03/11/10 Guinea
-03/11/10 Guinea-Bissau
-03/11/10 Kenya
-03/11/10 Lesotho
-03/11/10 Liberia
-03/11/10 Madagascar
-03/11/10 Malawi
-03/11/10 Mali
-03/11/10 Mauritania
-03/11/10 Mauritius
-03/11/10 Mozambique
-03/11/10 Namibia
-03/11/10 Niger
-03/11/10 Nigeria
-03/11/10 Rwanda
-03/11/10 Sao Tome and Principe
-03/11/10 Senegal
-03/11/10 Seychelles
-03/11/10 Sierra Leone
-03/11/10 Somalia
-03/11/10 South Africa
-03/11/10 Sudan
-03/11/10 Swaziland
-03/11/10 Tanzania
-03/11/10 Togo
-03/11/10 Uganda
-03/11/10 Zambia
-03/11/10 Zimbabwe
East Asia and the Pacific
-03/11/10 Australia
-03/11/10 Brunei Darussalam
-03/11/10 Burma
-03/11/10 Cambodia
-03/11/10 China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)
-03/11/10 Taiwan
-03/11/10 Fiji
-03/11/10 Indonesia
-03/11/10 Japan
-03/11/10 Kiribati
-03/11/10 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of
-03/11/10 Korea, Republic of
-03/11/10 Laos
-03/11/10 Malaysia
-03/11/10 Marshall Islands
-03/11/10 Micronesia, Federated States of
-03/11/10 Mongolia
-03/11/10 Nauru
-03/11/10 New Zealand
-03/11/10 Palau
-03/11/10 Papua New Guinea
-03/11/10 Philippines
-03/11/10 Samoa
-03/11/10 Singapore
-03/11/10 Solomon Islands
-03/11/10 Thailand
-03/11/10 Timor-Leste
-03/11/10 Tonga
-03/11/10 Tuvalu
-03/11/10 Vanuatu
-03/11/10 Vietnam
Europe and Eurasia
-03/11/10 Albania
-03/11/10 Andorra
-03/11/10 Armenia
-03/11/10 Austria
-03/11/10 Azerbaijan
-03/11/10 Belarus
-03/11/10 Belgium
-03/11/10 Bosnia and Herzegovina
-03/11/10 Bulgaria
-03/11/10 Croatia
-03/11/10 Cyprus
-03/11/10 Czech Republic
-03/11/10 Denmark
-03/11/10 Estonia
-03/11/10 Finland
-03/11/10 France
-03/11/10 Georgia
-03/11/10 Germany
-03/11/10 Greece
-03/11/10 Hungary
-03/11/10 Iceland
-03/11/10 Ireland
-03/11/10 Italy
-03/11/10 Kosovo
-03/11/10 Latvia
-03/11/10 Liechtenstein
-03/11/10 Lithuania
-03/11/10 Luxembourg
-03/11/10 Macedonia
-03/11/10 Malta
-03/11/10 Moldova
-03/11/10 Monaco
-03/11/10 Montenegro
-03/11/10 Netherlands
-03/11/10 Norway
-03/11/10 Poland
-03/11/10 Portugal
-03/11/10 Romania
-03/11/10 Russia
-03/11/10 San Marino
-03/11/10 Serbia
-03/11/10 Slovakia
-03/11/10 Slovenia
-03/11/10 Spain
-03/11/10 Sweden
-03/11/10 Switzerland
-03/11/10 Turkey
-03/11/10 Ukraine
-03/11/10 United Kingdom
Near East and North Africa
-03/11/10 Algeria
-03/11/10 Bahrain
-03/11/10 Egypt
-03/11/10 Iran
-03/11/10 Iraq
-03/11/10 Israel and the occupied territories
-03/11/10 Jordan
-03/11/10 Kuwait
-03/11/10 Lebanon
-03/11/10 Libya
-03/11/10 Morocco
-03/11/10 Western Sahara
-03/11/10 Oman
-03/11/10 Qatar
-03/11/10 Saudi Arabia
-03/11/10 Syria
-03/11/10 Tunisia
-03/11/10 United Arab Emirates
-03/11/10 Yemen
South and Central Asia
-03/11/10 Afghanistan
-03/11/10 Bangladesh
-03/11/10 Bhutan
-03/11/10 India
-03/11/10 Kazakhstan
-03/11/10 Kyrgyz Republic
-03/11/10 Maldives
-03/11/10 Nepal
-03/11/10 Pakistan
-03/11/10 Sri Lanka
-03/11/10 Tajikistan
-03/11/10 Turkmenistan
-03/11/10 Uzbekistan
Western Hemisphere
-03/11/10 Antigua and Barbuda
-03/11/10 Argentina
-03/11/10 Bahamas, The
-03/11/10 Barbados
-03/11/10 Belize
-03/11/10 Bolivia
-03/11/10 Brazil
-03/11/10 Canada
-03/11/10 Chile
-03/11/10 Colombia
-03/11/10 Costa Rica
-03/11/10 Cuba
-03/11/10 Dominica
-03/11/10 Dominican Republic
-03/11/10 Ecuador
-03/11/10 El Salvador
-03/11/10 Grenada
-03/11/10 Guatemala
-03/11/10 Guyana
-03/11/10 Haiti
-03/11/10 Honduras
-03/11/10 Jamaica
-03/11/10 Mexico
-03/11/10 Nicaragua
-03/11/10 Panama
-03/11/10 Paraguay
-03/11/10 Peru
-03/11/10 Saint Kitts and Nevis
-03/11/10 Saint Lucia
-03/11/10 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
-03/11/10 Suriname
-03/11/10 Trinidad and Tobago
-03/11/10 Uruguay
-03/11/10 Venezuela
Appendices
-03/11/10 Appendix A: Notes on Preparation of Report
-03/11/10 Appendix B: Reporting on Worker Rights
-03/11/10 Appendix C: Selected International Human Rights Conventions [1187 Kb]
-03/11/10 Appendix D: Description of International Human Rights Conventions in Appendix C
-03/11/10 Appendix E: FY 2009 Foreign Assistance Actuals [581 Kb]
-03/11/10 Appendix F: UN General Assembly’s Third Committee Country Resolution Votes 2009 [253 Kb]
-03/11/10 Appendix G: United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Related Material
-03/11/10 Remarks to the Press on the Release of the 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Washington, DC
-03/11/10 Briefing on the Release of the 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices; Assistant Secretary Michael H. Posner, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Washington, DC
OFAC has updated Cuba Service Providers
Monday, March 8th, 2010OFAC has released a periodic update of the list of Cuba Service Providers . Please note the summary of changes at the end of the document to see, for example, which Service Providers are newly added to the list.
2009 Immigration Court Highlights
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010Citations are to the 2009 Statistical Yearbook
- Immigration court receipts increased by six percent between FY 2005
(370,007) and FY 2009 (391,829). Receipts in FY 2009 increased by 11
percent from FY 2008. (Figure 1, Page B2) - Immigration court completions decreased by less than one percent
between FY 2005 (353,082) and FY 2009 (352,233). However, completions
in FY 2009 increased by four percent from FY 2008. (Figure 1, Page B2) - Immigration judge decisions decreased by 12 percent between FY 2005
(264,785) and FY 2009 (232,212). (Figure 4, Page D1) - Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and China were the leading
nationalities of immigration court completions during FY 2009, representing
69 percent of the total caseload. (Figure 6, page E1) - Spanish was the most frequently spoken language for immigration court
case completions during FY 2009 at over 68 percent. (Figure 8, page F1) - Thirty-nine percent of aliens whose cases were completed in immigration
courts during FY 2009 were represented. The representation rate for FY
2005 and FY 2006 would be 48 percent if failure to appear completions
were removed from the data. (Figure 9, page G1) - The failure to appear rate decreased to 11 percent in FY 2009. (Figure 10,
page H1) - Asylum applications filed with the immigration courts decreased by 27
percent from FY 2005 to FY 2009. Affirmative receipts decreased by 19
percent while defensive receipts decreased by 45 percent. (Figure 13,
page I1) - In FY 2009, the New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA;
Miami, FL; and Atlanta, GA, immigration courts received 54 percent of the
total asylum applications filed with the courts. (Table 6, page I3) - Six nationalities were among the top 10 nationalities granted asylum each
year during the five-year period FY 2005-09: China, Ethiopia, Haiti,
Colombia, India, and Albania. (Table 7, page J2) - The grant rate for asylum applications was 47 percent in FY 2009. The
grant rate was 55 percent for affirmative applications and 36 percent for
defensive applications. (Figures 16, 17, and 18, pages K1 and K2) - In FY 2009, the percentage of cases in which either asylum or withholding
of removal was granted was 56 percent. (Figure 19-B, page K5) - In FY 2009, 24 percent of proceedings completed at the immigration courts
had an application for relief. (Figure 22, page N1) - Fifty percent of FY 2009 immigration court completions involved detained
aliens. (Figure 23, page O1) - BIA had a 23 percent decrease in receipts between FY 2005 (42,725) and
FY 2009 (32,859) and a 29 percent decrease in completions during the
same period. (Table 17, page T2)
Getting cooked in the squat
Thursday, January 7th, 2010Most people wait until everything is just right before they do anything. They refuse to go out on a limb where the fruit is. They are the people who end up like the cook’s biscuits.
Let me explain. When I was a small boy in Yazoo City, Mississippi, we lived next door to some rich folks. I know they were rich because they not only had a cook, but the cook had something to cook. In the 1930’s that was a sure sign of wealth. I was there for lunch one day, as I tried to be most every day. On this occasion, the cook brought out a pan of biscuits. Since they were no thicker than a silver dollar, I asked, “Maude, what happened to those biscuits?” She reared back, laughed, and said, “Well, those biscuits squatted to rise, but they just got cooked in the squat.”
From: “See You at the Top” by Zig Ziglar
Now what in the world does this have with getting a “green card” or any other immigration benefit in today’s environment? The current situation does not allow everybody to get their benefit in the United States. Some people are able to get what they want along with filing for a waiver at USCIS, others may have to go home and process through their consulate. Everything is not just right. Does this mean you should just wring your hands and wait for the law to change? Maybe not, we have met with many families and individual we have been able to help.
Please meet with an immigration attorney and find out what your options are, how long it will take and what it will cost. Then talk to the attorney about what happens if you do not do anything. Certain people will be better off not doing anything now, but other will find that they are eligible for benefits and can come out from living in the shadows.