American Asylum Research Articles

Trauma in the American asylum process: Experiences of immigrant families under the migrant protection protocols.

Latinx asylum-seeking families report posttraumatic distress that is 161-204% higher than in nonimmigrants, with adverse consequences for health and well-being. Recent U.S. policies have further embedded trauma in the asylum-seeking process by forcing families to remain in Mexico, enduring dire living conditions in tent encampments near the border while awaiting processing. These families are now entering the United States in large numbers. This article sheds light on their recent experiences and mental health needs, using a mixed methods-grounded theory design, presenting quantitative and qualitative data to describe the experiences of six asylum-seeking families who waited for 1-2 years in the refugee camp in Mexico. Quantitative data was obtained from the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire while qualitative interviews provided insight into reasons for migration and trauma at different stages of the migration process. All participants experienced multiple traumas and endorsed trauma related symptoms. Important themes of psychological distress and trauma emerged, including unending suffering, hunger, and worry for the safety of their children while living in the refugee camp. Asylum-seeking families experienced substantial distress and trauma secondary to their stay in Mexico and COVID-19. Families arriving to the United States have experienced significant trauma, separation, and loss before and during their journey. Interactions with an unprepared and overwhelmed immigration system further compromises their psychological well-being. It is imperative that first-person narratives inform policy that addresses their complex needs and protects their human rights. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

HIV-infected Latin American asylum seekers in Madrid, Spain, 2022: A prospective cohort study from a major gateway in Europe.

BackgroundRecent migration trends have shown a notable entry of Latin American asylum seekers to Madrid, Spain.AimTo characterise the profile of asylum-seeking Latin American migrants who are living with HIV in Spain and to outline the barriers they face in accessing HIV treatment.MethodsA prospective cohort study was conducted between 2022 and 2023 with a 6-month follow-up period. Latin American asylum seekers living with HIV were recruited mainly from non-governmental organisations and received care at an HIV clinic in a public hospital in Madrid.ResultsWe included 631 asylum seekers. The primary countries of origin were Colombia (30%), Venezuela (30%) and Peru (18%). The median age was 32 years (interquartile range (IQR): 28-37), and 553 (88%) were cis men of which 94% were men who have sex with men. Upon their arrival, 49% (n = 309) lacked social support, and 74% (n = 464) faced barriers when attempting to access the healthcare system. Upon entry in Europe, 500 (77%) participants were taking antiretroviral therapy (ART). At their first evaluation at the HIV clinic, only 386 (61%) had continued taking ART and 33% (n = 209) had detectable plasma HIV-1 RNA levels. Six months later, 99% took ART and 98% had achieved an undetectable viral load.ConclusionsLatin American asylum seekers living with HIV in Madrid, Spain encountered barriers to healthcare and to ART. One-third of these individuals presented detectable HIV viral load when assessed in the HIV clinic, highlighting this as an important public health issue.

Catholics and the 1980s U.S. Sanctuary Movement

Abstract: Most of the scholarship on the 1980s U.S. Sanctuary Movement in support of Central American asylum seekers has emphasized the role of mainline Protestants in the movement’s birth in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and its spread across the country. This article instead focuses on Catholics’ pivotal role in the movement, which ranged from full support and significant leadership to deep skepticism and overt opposition. It examines sanctuary at both the local and national levels, exploring parish engagement while also assessing debates among clerical leaders on the movement’s legality and whether U.S. Catholics should challenge state power in supporting undocumented asylum seekers. This article illuminates the genealogies of sanctuary that have developed across Catholic, interfaith, and interethnic spaces, demonstrating how they represent one aspect of the Catholic Church’s growing emphasis on Latino immigrant, migrant, and refugee justice.

PRODUCING “ILLEGALITY”: THE RACIALIZATION OF MEXICAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM SEEKERS IN THE UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT As record numbers of Mexican and Central Americans arrive at the US-Mexico border, they encounter an asylum system that has evolved to exclude them. After detailing the specific legal changes that racialize these nationalities through criminalization, this study uses asylum data to illustrate how the current structure of the asylum process produces illegality for Mexican and Central Americans seeking protection in the US. We draw on asylum data outcomes for the largest groups filing defensive asylum claims to halt their deportation over the past decade to emphasize the impact of changing laws and the divergent impact of the implementation of those laws on Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Salvadoran, Chinese, and Indian asylum seekers. While Chinese and Indian nationals have relatively high rates of success obtaining asylum, their Mexican and Central American counterparts are consistently denied asylum, partially as a result of their criminalization in the US asylum system.

Price of Mobility

This research paper explores the origins of the border industrial complex, current American policies supported by private corporations regarding border infrastructure, and the impact of these policies on Central American asylum seekers. My investigation draws from critical border studies literature on the existence of borders as political tools as opposed to ‘neutral lines’ demarcating sovereignty, interrogating how border policies fuel the neoliberal economy. Given this background, I examine the commercialization of human mobility using border policies at the U.S.-Mexico border as a case study. The question at the core of my investigation is: to what extent does corporate investment in U.S-Mexico border militarization obstruct protection for Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States? In response, I argue that the issue of corporate involvement in U.S. border policy is important to examine because of how it impedes the implementation of progressive immigration policy by centering the border security market, and decentering human rights. More specifically, I contend that border violence as funded by corporate investment in state bordering becomes a way of maintaining racial hierarchy through movement and citizenship restrictions against racialized migrants from the Global South.

Legal bordering of asylum through liminality

Unlike the permanent and legitimizing protections of asylum more widely available to other nationalities, current US immigration law and legal mechanisms maintain large numbers of Central American asylum seekers in a perpetual state of legal limbo and precarity. Those able to argue their case in immigration court are most often denied asylum but increasing numbers are allowed to stay in the US in a legally liminal status. The resulting legal limbo for these would-be asylees subjects them to a permanent state of legal violence in the US’ racialized immigration climate. Analysis of US immigration court outcomes from 1997 to 2022 traces the historical denial of asylum to Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran nationals. A recent administrative tactic to address the historic immigration court backlog of asylum cases, dismissal of cases, are the latest in a historic pattern of granting Central American asylum-seekers temporary status with no pathway to permanent legal status. We argue that the rapid rise in immigration court dismissals is the latest means of denying asylum and casting Central American asylum seekers into a prolonged state of legal ambiguity in the US. While allowing refugee-migrants who are fleeing violence to remain in the US, these same individuals are excluded from legal protections and are exposed to the racialized violence of living as a criminalized underclass in US society.

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

Practical Considerations for Serving as an Expert Witness for Central American Asylum Cases

AbstractThe decision for academics, especially ethnographers whose contributions involve rapport and friendship, to serve as expert witnesses, particularly for the growing numbers of applicants from northern Central America, should involve ethical and professional considerations. While expert witnesses do not determine the veracity of individual cases, they should at least reflect when people from populations they know are disadvantaged and under various threats call for help. Professionally, academics should ask if they are really “experts” for the cases at hand, the cases are credible, and the number of requests they can handle before compromising other work obligations.

Sanctuary for Asylum Seekers: Revisiting the Religious Principle and Practice of Refuge in the Church

This article argues for a reconsideration of the tradition of church sanctuary. First, I analyze the reality of Central American asylum seekers who are systematically denied protection in the United States. Second, using the earliest Christian references to sanctuary from the fourth century, I show that sanctuary was a religious and pastoral response to persecuted persons fleeing violence and death. Third, I trace the process that led to sanctuary’s disappearance from the Code of Canon Law in the late twentieth century, and argue that there is a need to reintroduce sanctuary as a religious principle and practice of the church.

Individual and structural barriers to Latin American refugees and asylum seekers' access to primary and mental healthcare in Chile: A qualitative study.

BackgroundSince 2010 there has been a growing population of refugees and asylum seekers in Latin America. This study sought to investigate the perceived experiences and healthcare needs of refugees and asylum seekers of Latin American origin in Chile in order to identify main barriers to healthcare and provide guidance on allied challenges for the public healthcare system.MethodsDescriptive qualitative case study with semi-structured interviews applied to refugees and asylum seekers (n = 8), healthcare workers (n = 4), and members of Non-Governmental Organizations and religious foundations focused on working with refugees and asylum seekers in Chile (n = 2).ResultsAlthough Chilean law guarantees access to all levels of healthcare for the international migrant population, the specific healthcare needs of refugees and asylum seekers were not adequately covered. Primary care and mental healthcare were the most required types of service for participants, yet they appeared to be the most difficult to access. Difficulties in social integration -including access to healthcare, housing, and education- upon arrival and lengthy waiting times for legal status of refugees also presented great barriers to effective healthcare provision and wellbeing. Healthcare workers and members of organizations indicated the need for more information about refugee and asylum-seeking populations, their rights and conditions, as well as more effective and tailored healthcare interventions for them, especially for emergency mental healthcare situations.ConclusionsAll participants perceived that there was disinformation among institutional actors regarding the healthcare needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Chile. They also perceived that there were barriers to access to primary care and mental healthcare, which might lead to overuse of emergency services. This study highlights a sense of urgency to protect the social and healthcare needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Latin America.

Latino and Central American Asylum Seekers in the United States of America During the Trump Administration

The purpose of the article was to examine the Trump administration's asylum policy applied to Central American and Latino applicants. The United States has grappled with refugee problems in recent decades, and in 2018 Trump signed an executive order to detain families seeking to immigrate to the United States without separating from one another. With this decree, a new approach was formed in the policy of the United States government, which emphasizes the severe restrictions on the entry of asylum seekers and immigrants. In the methodological, it is a documentary research close to hermeneutics. It is concluded that, although the United States government has cited security concerns as an excuse to restrict the entry of asylum seekers, especially Latinos from Central American countries, this political approach is in conflict with the national legislation of the United States that stipulates that any citizen Foreigner arriving at any point along the US border, or at official exit points, has the right to apply for asylum. Furthermore, the implementation of such a policy is contrary to the end of the 1951 Convention, which focuses on the protection of refugees without distinction.

A movement in motion: collective mobility and embodied practice in the central American migrant caravan

ABSTRACT In this article, I examine the psychosocial and phenomenological implications for the lived experiences of collective mobility among Central American asylum seekers and irregular migrants bound for the United States. I argue that attentiveness to migrants’ embodied practices and encounters with the material world engender novel insight into the generative and productive potential of collective journeying. I focus on migrant caravans through Mexico that have surged in recent years in response to escalating rates of gang violence, extreme poverty, and environmental devastation in Central American countries. The analysis reveals that the transformative power of the caravan lies in its capacity to disrupt patterns of collective trauma by bearing witness to the atrocities migrants have suffered and giving meaning to their collective struggle. Close examination of how these processes unfold en route may help explain how and why collective mobility promotes resilience among participants and their ability to resist the effects of long-term collective trauma.

Refugee Rights Across Regions: A Comparative Overview of Legislative Good Practices in Latin America and the EU

Abstract The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified a number of legislative good practices in Latin American asylum and refugee laws. At the same time, academics and policy-makers have long called for cross-regional comparative analyses of policies and laws to allow different regions to learn from each other’s best practices. In this article, we compare refugee legislations of Latin American countries with European Union protection standards based on UNHCR’s legislative good practices across three areas: (i) Core Principles and Scope of Protection; (ii) Procedural Safeguards and Guarantees for Vulnerable Groups; and (iii) Integration. We find that six of 19 refugee laws in Latin America provide more expansive protection than the Common European Asylum System framework, whereas other Latin American countries fall behind. The gap between Latin American legislations and European Union protection standards is closer regarding procedural safeguards, the protection of vulnerable groups, and integration provisions. Finally, Latin American countries, on average, score significantly below the European Union regarding the core principles of asylum and the scope of protection. In the second part of the article, we engage in a qualitative discussion of these legislative good practices to allow for cross-fertilization, and deliver policy recommendations.

Central American Asylum Seekers in Southern Mexico: Fluid (Im)mobility in Protracted Migration Trajectories

The search for safety among asylum seekers worldwide is seldom circumscribed to a linear trajectory. Central Americans who arrive in Mexico seeking protection engage in prolonged journeys whether as a part of a predetermined plan or as a result of the changing circumstances they encounter along the way. As people await a response to their claim, they enter a pause that immobilizes them, which influences the decision to stay put or to move on. Difficult conditions in Mexico, the hurdles that the procedure to access asylum imposes on claimants, and the intended plans for ongoing mobility engender fluid migration trajectories

Media, place-making, and concept-metaphors: the US-Mexico border during the rise of Donald Trump

In this article, we trace shifting representations of a US-Mexico border region in national mainstream news media during the rise of Donald Trump. We argue that the border is an American concept-metaphor that circulates and reshapes in media in response to political actors. We compare articles published in 2015, 2016, and 2017 about the Texas borderlands where the majority of Central American asylum seekers arrived. Crucial to Trump’s success, the narrow, racialized rendering of the border inadvertently provoked a wider array of representations in national news media but remained rooted in how Americans think about Others, sovereignty, and immigration. Our work contributes to scholarship that connects discursive regimes and statecraft with life in borderlands to lay bare underlying social tensions and potential violence. Analysis of concept-metaphors can open spaces for new articulations of key cultural domains and interrogate hidden assumptions about places, crucial during times of surging populism and nationalism.

México como tercer país ¿seguro? Instrumentalización del derecho de asilo

This paper aims to argue that the United States has instrumentalized the right to asylum by converting Mexico into a “third ‘safe’ country” to divert Central American asylum seekers to Mexican territory and evade its international protection obligations. The methodological design is deductive, that is, such theorization was reached through documentary sources. Even with the limitations of the method, the paper is innovative because it analyzes migration management from critical legal studies and legal biopolitics by approaching securitization of migration through a genealogy of the discourses used by the United States to externalize its borders to Mexico, which have as their most recent strategy the “third ‘safe’ country” agreement. The consequences are the distortion of the right to asylum by removing its main protection: the non-refoulement principle and, in consequence, to let die Central American people fleeing from persecution and death geographies.

A Step Too Far: Chevron and ‘Particular Social Group’

Every day, thousands of Central American asylum seekers, many fleeing persecution from domestic abusers and gangs, attempt to seek refuge in the United States. To receive asylum, those escaping such violence typically must show membership in a “particular social group.” In Matter of A-B-, issued in June 2018, then-Attorney General Jefferson B. Sessions III attempted to destroy the viability of domestic-violence-related particular social groups altogether. As we demonstrate in this Article, this far-reaching decision should not receive Chevron deference from reviewing courts. A-B- is concerning both for its potentially calamitous effect on individuals fleeing domestic and gang violence and for the abrupt, unwarranted departure from established immigration law that it represents. As a result of A-B-, individuals, many of them women, are being subjected to both different and higher standards for certain aspects of their asylum claims and must “re-invent the wheel” of establishing that domestic violence can be a basis for asylum. Federal courts reviewing immigration decisions apply the Chevron two-step framework, which requires a court to begin by using statutory interpretation to examine the meaning of the term at issue. In this Article, we provide a fresh analysis of “particular social group” through statutory construction, legislative history, and international context to find that there are some unambiguous parameters around the term. Then, advancing arguments under both steps of Chevron, we find that A-B- contradicts congressional intent, misinterprets precedent, and oversteps the discretionary authority afforded to the agency. Therefore, reviewing courts should not give A-B- deference.

Why Are You Seeking Refuge? Conducting Evaluations of Central American Asylum Seekers

Asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle region in Central America, comprised of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, many of them unaccompanied minors and families with young children, are arriving at the U.S. border in record high numbers. Many of them have been exposed to trauma and violence in their country of origin and have suffered human rights abuses. Their reception in the USA is increasingly adversarial. Under the Trump administration, there has been a rise in policies that endanger the human rights of Central American immigrants and refugees. Mental health professionals can play an important role in protecting their human rights and helping them in the asylum process. They can assist asylum seekers through conducting culturally informed psychological evaluations and as expert witnesses, testifying in court and producing court reports. This paper includes an overview of the legal and international context of the asylum process and discusses geopolitical factors affecting asylum seekers from Central America. Case examples of evaluations of Central American asylum seekers that were conducted by the author are provided to illustrate key points of how social workers can assist applicants in their asylum applications, thereby supporting their human rights.

Assessing the Relationship between Neoliberal Ideology and Reactions to Central American Asylum Seekers in the United States

AbstractAccording to the United Nations, there are approximately 22.5 million refugees in the world and this number is expected to grow due to war and environmental catastrophe. Additionally, contemporary U.S. society is marked by neoliberal ideology, increasingly coupled with nationalist discourses and policies. Noting the current U.S. sociopolitical context, there is great incentive to study how internalization of neoliberal ideology relates to engagement in efforts to support the rights of refugees. In the current study, we examine the relationships between internalized neoliberal ideology, moral exclusion of people seeking asylum from Central America, levels of ethnocentrism, and willingness to engage in efforts to support the human rights of asylum seekers. Participants (N = 270) were recruited through Prolific Academic and responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings illustrate a strong connection between endorsement of neoliberal ideology and the moral exclusion of Central American asylum seekers, as well as lower levels of willingness to engage in efforts to support the rights of asylum seekers and higher levels of ethnocentrism. Policy implications are discussed.

Trump, Migration, and Agriculture

The US is the country of immigration, with almost 20 per cent of the world’s 260 million international migrants. The number two country with international migrants, Germany, has 12 million, a fourth as many as the almost 48 million foreign-born US residents (UN DESA, 2017). The US stands alone among industrial countries in having a quarter of its immigrants, almost 11 million, unauthorised (Passel and Cohn, 2018). President Trump made reducing illegal immigration a priority. Major migration issues today include the fate of programs such as DACA, what to do about Central American families who apply for asylum, and whether to build a wall on the Mexico-US border. In December 2018-January 2019, there was a partial shutdown of the federal government, the third in Trump’s first two years as President, because Congress failed to include $5 billion for the border wall in bills that fund DHS and other federal agencies. Meanwhile, Mexico agreed to issue humanitarian visas to Central Americans who enter the US and apply for asylum, so that Central American asylum seekers may wait in Mexico for US decisions on their cases