Random Thoughts

As I was looking through the Department of Homeland Security's report on refugees and asylees , I came across this amazing plot: What accounts for this huge decline in refugees entering the US? I seriously doubt it is the decline in the number of people seeking refugee protection because the world has had quite a few humanitarian and political crisis. People I talk to tell me that countries like Canada and Australia have been more accommodating of refugees throughout the world with the help of UNHCR. Has the US been reluctant to fully participate in such programs? The explanation given on the report is as follows: 9/11 has certainly had an impact, but the numbers have been declining since the 1990s. Asylum admission , on the other hand, had been rising in the 1990s and declining since 2001. Number of people granted asylum in the US is now half the number of those given refugee status. In the 1990s, the ratio of refugees to asylees was much larger. I will certainly tr...

Not too many stories resonate with me as much as the plight of legitimate asylum seekers whose desperate plea to find refuge in the US is ultimately decided by the questionable preference, judgment and mood of a single asylum officer (with some oversight from a regional asylum director) on one fateful day. That decision, according to numerous credible and through studies, depends largely on the location of the regional asylum center, the legal representation of the the applicant, the gender of the asylum officer just as much as the merit of the asylum case, while in fact the legitimacy of the asylum case should be the only relevant factor. This phenomenon has become so real that researchers at the Georgetown University law school have dubbed it the Refugee Roulette . Why am I so sensitive about this subject? My most devastating tragedy of late has been the denial of my legitimate and honest application for political asylum at the Chicago Asylum Office. When I applied believing the ...