From Connect (May 2006)
Asylum Field Journal
By Lorraine Reynolds
Headlines
and media images have lately demonstrated the need for improvements to our
immigration system. Thousands across the country recently marched to support
reforms that would enable many immigrants to remain in the United States.
At the same time, since 9/11, the country has seen stricter enforcement
of admittance regulations, both for those seeking work due to dire economic
straits, and for refugees and asylum seekers - those with a genuine fear
of returning to their home countries because of potential persecution.
AIUSA's Refugee Program works to promote fair hearings for such asylum seekers and aids many of them with their cases. Thus, the need for trained interviewers to go into the jails where these people are detained to determine whether AIUSA's Refugee Program can assist them, principally by providing them with consistent information on human rights conditions in their native countries to corroborate their asylum claim.
Over last St. Patrick's Day weekend, I participated in the most recent training program, held in Chicago. During this rigorous training process, myself and six other trainees from the Midwest acquired information about AI's role in previous cases, asylum law, were taught techniques for interviewing detainees and had the delight of meeting with a former asylum seeker whose request for protection had been granted. While overwhelming at times, it was an experience I will never forget.
As part of our training we were scheduled to go to McHenry County Jail in Woodstock, IL. No amount of groundwork could have prepared me for my initial reaction when I got there. After passing through several locked doors, being told to stand to the side while a detainee was passing, and then coming face-to-face with a room full of orange-garbed men surrounded by jail cells and patrolled by guards, my confidence was shaken. These people looked like criminals because that is how they were being treated, and therein lay the problem. Their only "crime" was their desire to remain safe in our country, and yet we locked them up, took away their dignity, and re-traumatized many who had already suffered so much. We do all this in the name of protecting our borders.
I quickly regained my composure and got down to the job I had just been taught to perform. "Elijah" from Liberia, for example, feared returning to his homeland because he is a homosexual; and "David" from Haiti, who has lived here almost his whole life, feared return because other family members in Haiti have been tortured for their political affiliations.
Gathering the necessary information and asking the men sometimes uncomfortable questions, uncomfortable for both them and for me, felt humbling. But it was terribly important. I am grateful for, and proud of, my training and experience with the Refugee Program.
Every year thousands of refugees and asylum seekers reach our shores. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to help them. The AIUSA Refugee Program is a vital and necessary program in this area as long as the United States continues to criminalize people seeking a safe haven here.
I was honored to be a part of the training group and feel confident in my ability to do my small part in the struggle for the human rights of asylum seekers.
Learn more about the AIUSA Refugee Program and its asylum trainings »