The fact that many immigrants are denied asylum status only because they missed the deadline is a failure of the system, according to a report released today by National Immigrant Justice Center, Human Rights First and Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights. The study looked at asylum hearing records from the Board of Immigration Appeals and found that about 20 percent missed the one-year filing deadline. Of those, about half were denied asylum based only on missing the deadline. Immigrants can be denied asylum status for a number of other reasons, such as a determination by the Board that their claims of persecution are illegitimate.

Applicants can include children under the age of 21 and spouses in their applications, but at times, the report found, the Board ruled differently on husbands and wives. In at least two cases the report referenced, married couples were separated after filing after the one-year deadline, with the courts allowing the husbands to remain in the country but deporting the wives.

It is understandable that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would create a deadline — after all, the agency must eventually get a chance to determine whether to grant asylum status to immigrants already in the country. Still, as the Obama administration touts its commitment to refugees and asylum, the continued deportation of immigrants who would likely be given asylum status except for a deadline seems contrary to the goals of the process.

Some political refugees, including Iraqi Kurds or Vietnamese Hmong, stand to lose lifeline payments. (U.S. Army)

In recent weeks, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has received dozens of messages from refugees facing extraordinary hardship. One came from a 50-year-old woman confined to a wheelchair. She fled government persecution in Liberia, and is worried about passing her naturalization test. Another woman came to the U.S. from Cuba. She depleted her finances battling cancer.

[Economy1] But the two women are not worried about their health, or their status. They are worried about their Supplemental Security Income, a program that allows the elderly and disabled, including humanitarian refugees, to small Social Security payments. (Normally non-citizens cannot receive Social Security in any form. The United States makes an exception for refugees.) Just a few thousand non-citizens need them, and they are available for only the neediest people: those who have less than $2,000 to their name and are elderly, blind, or suffering from disabilities. Refugee recipients tend to be particularly strapped. The first woman lost her Supplemental Security Income payments is April. The second will lose them this week — on Oct. 1 — along with 3,800 others.

Yesterday, the Senate considered a measure to extend eligibility for Supplemental Security Income for some of the neediest refugees. The bill, introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), would cost about $22 million, fully paid for by a fee collected for unemployment fraud. It came up for unanimous consent, but failed to pass in the final hours of the session.

Refugee advocates are outraged. Non-citizen SSI recipients have often undergone persecution and torture. They fled atrocities in Sudan, Iraq, Russia and Vietnam before receiving refuge and minimal support here. Advocates of extending SSI eligibility argue the federal government has broken its promise to refugees by setting limits on how long elderly and disabled refugees can receive federal aid without gaining citizenship. Unlike others who receive SSI payments, refugees are limited to a short time period — seven years — for receiving funding until they become U.S. citizens.

Eligibility was extended in 2008, when President George W. Bush pushed for two additional years of SSI payments for elderly and disabled refugees. But now the two years are up, and some of these refugees have remained unable to gain citizenship. When the new fiscal year starts Friday, they could be dropped off SSI payments until they are able to become citizens — if they are able to successfully complete the process at all.

The problem is that refugees are welcomed into the U.S., but treated differently from citizens under the SSI program, says Dinah Wiley, public benefits policy attorney for the National Immigration Law Center.

“It’s a matter of equity and fairness,” she says. “Cutting people off is not an issue for citizens, and we’re imposing an additional citizenship requirements on these SSI recipients that many of them just can’t meet.”

The standards were established in 1996, when welfare reform created time limits for refugees receiving SSI payments. After coming to the U.S., legal residents must wait at least five years to apply for citizenship, a process that requires them to know some English and pay application fees unless they obtain waivers. The system is designed with loopholes in place to help the poor, elderly and disabled, who often have more difficulty learning English and coming up with the $595 naturalization fees. But the same issue that keeps refugees from passing the tests often keeps them from getting out of it: Many do not know the waivers are an option or where they can go for help.

While Melanie Nezer, senior director U.S. policy and advocacy, hears from many refugees who have lost or face losing SSI payments, she says she worries more about the refugees who do not know they can reach out for support.

“These are people who don’t always have access to help,” Nezer says. “If they could reach us, we could help them, but these are people who don’t even know where to start.”

It would be better to end time limits for eligibility, advocates say, but in the meantime a one-year extension could prevent thousands of refugees from losing SSI payments. Groups say they plan to continue to lobby in the lame duck session and next year for Congress to eliminate limits on SSI eligibility for refugees.

Although efforts to extend SSI payments have not encountered serious opposition — the extension in 2008 earned bipartisan support — rights groups have had trouble getting it added to the legislative calendar. “We don’t really hear opposition, we just have difficulty getting support,” Wiley says.

“It costs a certain amounts to provide benefits to people, but what does it cost for people to be dropping off and being reinstated, causing a lot of anguish on the part of very vulnerable fragile people and their friends and neighbors?” she says. “All the costs have to be considered.”

One cost is on local communities and governments, which often have to step in when the federal government does not. This is frustrating for state legislatures, which have no ability to control the influx of refugees into their state but are tasked with spending state funds to pay for their health care and support when federal payments stop.

The National Conference of State Legislatures pushed for the government to extend eligibility to ensure refugees are given payments by the federal government. In a Sept. 28 letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the organization said Congress should extend payments to prevent “states from bearing the unfair burden of providing for the health and welfare of these individuals,” made even more difficult as state budgets shrink in the recession.

“If the government withdraws SSI benefits, [refugees] are shifted to state and local governments if their health care takes place in the emergency room or their income support comes from state programs,” says Sheri Steisel of the National Conference for State Legislatures. “We believe the federal government has a responsibility to live up to the decision they make in deciding who is a refugee.”

When all levels of government fail the refugees, local communities are often left with the cost. This is true for refugees of all ages, but particularly the elderly and disabled who receive SSI payments, says Eric Sigmon, director for advocacy for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Because the effort to extend eligibility failed, the refugees who lose their federal aid Friday will be particularly dependent on these social networks, he says.

“It may mean they will have to rely on friends and family, maybe even their churches and other organizations to find a way to pay for food and grocery or ongoing health care,” he says. “Efforts will have to be taken to make sure outreach is done to create some kind of safety net for folks that will be facing some pretty tough times.”

Refugees are one of the few non-citizen groups eligible to receive welfare, but current law states they can only receive Supplemental Security Income for seven years after they enter the U.S. The idea is that after this period of time they will have naturalized — a process that takes a minimum of five years — and can apply for government aid as U.S. citizens. But many are unable to pass citizenship tests, pay fees or overcome administrative hurdles in time to gain citizenship within the seven years. In response, President George W. Bush successfully pushed for a two-year eligibility extension in 2008.

The extension was a good start, refugee advocates say, but many refugees need more time to earn citizenship. And the benefits will be cut off for more refugees in coming months, with an estimated 11,000 refugees expected to lose SSI benefits within the next 13 months.

If passed, Gillibrand’s extension would give elderly and disabled refugees who were granted the 2008 extension one additional year to become citizens. But it would also mean continuing to aid refugees who fled persecution or torture in their native countries, many of whom could be unable to pay rent or buy food without SSI money.

The recession has made adjusting to life in the U.S. difficult for refugees, as even younger refugees struggle to find work. But it is particularly tough for those who cannot work — which is why SSI payments are so important. The extension was available to elderly refugees — 65 or older — or the seriously disabled who fled persecution in their native countries and have little or no income or assets in the U.S.

The system was designed so the elderly and disabled could receive benefits until they have been in the U.S. enough time to become naturalized citizens and receive government support. The naturalization process is supposed to take five years, but backlogs have led to some refugees losing benefits before they are eligible for other help. Congress attempted to solve this problem by temporarily extending refugees’ SSI limit in 2008, to nine years for those actively pursuing citizenship. But a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warns these extensions will begin to expire Oct. 1:

“Congress should act quickly to avert the severe hardship that this small but vulnerable group would face,” the report states. “Lawmakers should also consider going beyond temporary stopgap measures and adopting permanent legislation that recognizes these refugees’ unique circumstances.”

A Somali refugee family resettles in Sioux Falls, S.D. (Flickr, UNHCR)

Stan Delp, a 67-year-old retired teacher living in Lansdale, Penn., was sitting in church in June, 2008, when he noticed four unfamiliar black-haired men by him. He found they were new to the United States, having spent 11 years in refugee camp in Thailand. Delp’s church is not big — about 200 people regularly attend — but nevertheless it has helped 47 such refugees assimilate to life in the United States over the past two years. When Delp met the men, he decided to do his part. He helped them buy clothes at Kohl’s and taught them how to use a refrigerator. He searched for jobs for them, and ended up waking at 5 a.m. to drive one man to work for several months, then allowed him to move into his home. Now that he lives in a retirement home, the refugees, now friends, visit a few nights a week.

“It’s like being a dad to them, really,” Delp says. “It takes 14 years to get assimilated into American culture. That’s a long time.”

[Immigration1] In the United States, the refugee resettlement system has always worked largely thanks to the generosity of people like Delp, as a public-private partnership with volunteer services and government backing. But the recession is threatening the stability of the program and the availability of resources to refugees. The government has stepped up its contributions to help new refugee migrants adjust to American life, but provides just eight months of resources. With jobs scarce, the churches and community centers that help after then are stretched to the point of breaking.

The government is aware of the problem, but thus far has taken only small steps to ameliorate it. The State Department doubled the amount of money it gives private resettlement agencies to help refugees when they first come to the United States, from $900 to $1,800. That amount helps the groups provide services for refugees and fund-raise for additional aid money for up to 90 days after the refugee enters the country. But the State Department knows $1,800 is not enough to support a refugee for three months, particularly with the difficulty of finding work, a State Department official told TWI.

“Part of the philosophy of our program is for people to reach self-reliance as quickly as possible,” says the official. “It used to be that very often refugees would have found work by the time our period of responsibility is up, and that’s much less true now.”

The Obama administration authorized in September 2009 the admission of up to 80,000 refugees in the 2010 fiscal year, up from 75,000 admitted in the 2009 fiscal year. In the authorization, the administration acknowledged that the “recent economic downturn has presented new challenges for this and other humanitarian programs.” To address these problems, the National Security Council was tasked with determining what needs to be done to improve refugee resettlement in the U.S.

“The basic set-up of the program hasn’t been altered in many years,” National Security Council spokesman Ben Chang told the Los Angeles Times in June. “It was time to take a fresh look.”

A few policy improvements have been recommended so far. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced legislation in March that would allow refugees to apply for green cards immediately upon entering the U.S. and adjust refugee resettlement grants annually based on inflation and the cost of living.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, commissioned a report on refugee resettlement and found the process often places an unfair burdens local communities. Called “Abandoned Upon Arrival,” Lugar argues in the opening of the July 21 report that the government should modify its funding and admittance numbers — either increasing funding of refugee resettlement programs or decreasing the number of refugees it admits — so high costs are not passed on to local communities.

“We must acknowledge the costs associated with this activity,” Lugar wrote in a July 20 letter formally requesting a Government Accountability Office investigation on the refugee resettlement process.

The idea of cutting down on refugee admissions is not appetizing, particularly at a time when the need is so high. Of 42 million people forced by conflict or persecution to move from their homes, 16 million need asylum or refugee status, according to a 2009 report from the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Forcing refugees to wait in camps, which often cannot provide the same health and education services they could find in the U.S., can have a detrimental affect on them, says Susan Krehbiel, a vice president at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

“It does become kind of a Catch-22,” Krehbiel says. “Some of the refugees have been in camps for 15 to 20 years. There are some human costs to delaying peoples’ resettlement.”

Still, Krehbiel says the current system struggles to serve the refugees it does admit, and relies too heavily on volunteer donations of time and money. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, established in 1980 as part of the Department of Health and Human Services, provides funding for up to eight months of cash and medical assistance, and refugee families may be eligible for additional money through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, and Medicaid.

The government also provides up to five years of employment services, supplemented by private programs. But with the sluggish economy, employment programs through the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service have seem a marked difference in the speed of job searches among refugees, Krehbiel says. While in previous years 80 percent of refugees were employed within four months, the recession dropped that number to about 60 percent. It usually takes about a year to get 80 percent of refugees in the program hired, she says.

Janet Panning, a program director at two Pennsylvania Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service programs, says she has seen a significant decrease in employment opportunities for refugees. Recent anti-immigrant fervor hasn’t helped the situation, as some employers are hesitant to employ refugees because they think they could be illegal immigrants.

“People are very afraid of hiring people they think might be illegal or not have proper work documentation,” Panning says. “Sometimes employers that aren’t up on the law might be reluctant to hire a refugee because they might not have a green card.”

If they are not able to find employment, single people are in an especially bad situation after government cash assistance ends. Some refugees have struggled to support themselves and pay rent. Panning says she knows of several refugees who have become homeless over the years, but typically secondary issues beyond unemployment contribute to the problem.

Panning says she worked with one refugee who nearly became homeless after her family dispersed around the country. The woman had a war-related disability that was difficult to show to employers and kept her from working steadily, and eventually was placed in subsidized housing.

“She never went on the street, but it was through the blood, sweat and tears of volunteers that kept her in housing,” Panning says

The government has attempted to stave off homelessness among refugees. The State Department provided $5 million in emergency housing funding last year. For next year, the Department of Health and Human Services requested an additional $25 million from Congress for case management and emergency housing.

But local communities often take on that task as well. Delp charges a refugee $200 per month — “not even enough to cover utilities,” he laughs — to stay in his house while he stays in a local retirement home. He also helps a seven-person family pay the rent on a five-bedroom house nearby. (They were living in a two-bedroom apartment until he helped them move out a few weeks ago, Delp says.)

He says he and the other members of his church see helping the refugees as something they must do. “Those of us who have been given resources, it’s up to us to reach out to these people,” Delp says. “I can afford to reach out, so I want to help as much as I can.”

Today, The Washington Independent unveils a new feature that will track the outcomes of habeas corpus cases filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees who have challenged their indefinite detentions in the federal court system.

The Gitmo Habeas Scoreboard is broken up into two sections: cases won by detainees — further divided between detainees who have been released and those still in custody — and cases won by the U.S. government. Using information compiled by Pro Publica and David Remes, legal director of Appeal for Justice, the accompanying charts feature background information on all 41 detainees whose cases have been decided to date, including the allegations against each detainee, the court’s reasoning in each decision, and the status of any appeals. As more cases are resolved, we’ll keep updating the chart.

Of the 41 cases heard so far, detainees have won 32 of them. That means that in 32 out of 41 cases, the government was unable to present enough evidence, including classified evidence, to convince a federal court judge that it’s more likely than not that the detainee was a member or substantial supporter of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. (Habeas cases are civil proceedings, where there is no need to establish guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as in criminal trials.)

Of the 32 cases the government has lost, it has appealed only two. Eight detainees who have lost their cases have appealed so far.

Meanwhile, many of the prisoners who have won their petitions for habeas corpus are still imprisoned at Gitmo. Although the court in each case ordered the government to arrange for the detainee’s expeditious release, in some cases the government can’t or won’t send the prisoner back to where he came from. In some cases, that’s either because the detainee legitimately fears persecution at home, as in the case of the Uighurs. In others, it’s because, as with the prisoners from Yemen, the U.S. government doesn’t trust the detainee’s home government to keep him from joining up with local terror groups upon his return.

As a result, of the 32 detainees who have won an order of release in a U.S. federal court, 11 remain in prison.

For a full breakdown of all the cases, see the Gitmo Habeas Scoreboard here.

“A 2005 congressionally authorized bipartisan commission found that it wasn’t appropriate to detain asylum seekers in prisons,” said Franken. “That was four years ago. Now they’re still being detained in prison, put in jumpsuits and shackles. They’re even put in solitary confinement,” he said. “They aren’t criminals.”

Napolitano responded that part of the agency’s detention reform process, still being implemented, is “to really do a risk analysis for every individual who comes into our system.”

Franken persisted. “There’s a credible fear interview. Very often they continue to be detained even after it’s been determined that they have a credible fear if they go back.”

Napolitano did not deny the problem. “We’re working with officers to increase the speed by which they are paroled into the country if there has been a determination of credible fear.”

According to a recent report on the detention of asylum seekers by Human Rights First, the U.S. detention system for asylum seekers “is inconsistent with international refugee protection and human rights standards.”

Clinton says she’ll staff the State Department’s resident refugee office with “creative individuals.” Pledges to help the Iraqi government “as it deals with the repatriation … of refugees.” She says she’ll elevate the issue of refugees more broadly, not just with Iraq, and calls it “a high priority.” Wants more funding for handling refugees, and challenges Congress to “come up with an effective strategy.”