Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication and Proposals for ReformNYU Press, 29 apr 2011 - 354 pagina's Through the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States offers the prospect of safety to people who flee to America to escape rape, torture, and even death in their native countries. In order to be granted asylum, however, an applicant must prove to an asylum officer or immigration judge that she has a well-founded fear of persecution in her homeland. The chance of winning asylum should have little if anything to do with the personality of the official to whom a case is randomly assigned, but in a ground-breaking and shocking study, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, and Philip G. Schrag learned that life-or-death asylum decisions are too frequently influenced by random factors relating to the decision makers. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum case is the instant in which a clerk randomly assigns the application to an adjudicator. The system, in its current state, is like a game of chance. |
Inhoudsopgave
Introduction | 1 |
The Asylum Process | 11 |
The Regional Asylum Offices | 17 |
The Immigration Courts | 33 |
The Board of Immigration Appeals | 61 |
The United States Courts of Appeals | 77 |
Conclusions and Policy Recommendations | 89 |
Refugee Roulette in the Canadian Casino | 135 |
A UK Perspective | 164 |
Consistency Credibility and Culture | 187 |
Methodological Appendix | 307 |
Ninth Circuit Appendix | 327 |