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Second Chance: Ethiopians Granted Asylum as Others Wait Diana Washington Valdez A group of Ethiopians temporarily living in El Paso are among the thousands of people from around the world who seek asylum in the United States after fleeing their countries for reasons such as political or religious persecution. Fre Biniam, 27, a native of Ethiopia and the only woman in the group, is hoping a U.S. immigration judge will approve her case. Five of her compatriots recently had their requests approved. Except for a pair of siblings, none of the Ethiopians knew each other until they met in El Paso during the asylum proceedings. But several of them followed a similar circuitous journey with stops in Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico. "I had two nationalities, Eritrean and Ethiopian, but I lost my Ethiopian nationality, and I can't work or go to school because the Eritreans are persecuted in my country," she said.
Eritrea became a separate country after winning independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but ethnic conflicts have marred relations between the two countries and violent clashes are reported on occasion along their common border. The other Ethiopians, who range in age from 20 to 26, did not want to divulge their identities and provided few details because they fear potential reprisals against relatives in Ethiopia. Micaela Guthrie, a lawyer for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, represented the group. One of the other Ethiopians, who was a student leader, said he was singled out for persecution because the government suspected he was a spy. Another belonged to an opposition political party, was jailed and tortured and received death threats. A third Ethiopian, a college student counselor who fought against ethnic divisions at the campus, also became a target for persecution. This year alone, Guthrie said, Las Americas assisted 13 people through the complete asylum petition process, which included "70 hearings for preliminary matters." Guthrie said there is a big need for more lawyers in El Paso to handle asylum cases. Asylum petitioners seeking help from Las Americas have come from China, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Somalia, Iran, Nigeria, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Burma and Honduras. "I am seeing younger people come through, and some of them are persecuted because they are promoting democracy in their countries," she said. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not have statistics for asylum cases originating in El Paso, but nationally about 86,600 people requested U.S. asylum in fiscal year 2004 through CIS and immigration courts. U.S. immigration officials approved about 21,000 cases. "There was an amendment to the law that went into effect this May that makes it harder to get asylum approved," said Marlene Gonzalez, an El Paso lawyer specializing in family law who likes to intersperse her practice with asylum petitions. "They are now requiring documents and evidence to support the claims, whereas before a lot of it depended on whether a judge believed the claim was credible. In the absence of documents, they want affidavits from people who are in a position to know why it is not possible to get the documentation." In fiscal year 2004, the U.S. Justice Department reported 55,067 total requests received by U.S. immigration courts. (The fiscal year is from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.) The courts usually process what are known as "defensive cases," generally when the asylum seeker is found to be in the country illegally. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services handles other asylum requests that involve people who are in the country legally, as tourists, students or workers, and who seek a change in their status. For example, Citizenship and Immigration Services received 31,561 requests in fiscal year 2004, the year that 11,657 were granted approvals. Cases may be carried over from year to year, and at the end of the 2004 fiscal year, 184,643 were still pending. Asylum basically means extending protection to someone from another country by allowing the person to remain the United States. William Strassberger, spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services in Washington, D.C., said the main reasons asylum is granted include past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, political opinion or membership in a social group. Immigration experts said belonging to a social group could include membership in lesbian and gay organizations. Last week, a clergyman who said he was an archbishop of the Vetero Catholic Church in Brazil asked for assistance in seeking asylum but decided to move on because he was afraid of being discovered by the people he was fleeing. The church is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. In a telephone interview, José Ricardo Ferreira de Souza alleged that his life was threatened by a church-related mafia in Brazil with ties to drug dealers and the Colombian FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels. "Because of the danger, I am afraid to stay in one place for too long. Besides, they wanted more than $4,000 in El Paso to represent my case. I don't have that kind of money." Ouisa Davis, executive director of the Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services, said Ferreira talked to her staff, "but we couldn't help him because we don't handle any asylum cases." Bernard Rosenbloom, a veteran immigration lawyer, said people from some countries have better luck in some years than others. "For example, there was a time when people from the Soviet Union or Cuba had no problem, but that isn't the case now," he said. "For an asylum to succeed, the client has to give you all the information with respect to the case," Rosenbloom said. "The person cannot lie. He or she has to tell the whole truth. Then, there must be outside evidence to back the claim." Though a country's conditions are important, immigration experts said, asylum cases are highly individualized and stand or fall on the strength of the asylum seeker's facts and circumstances. Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140. |
