I am no Terrorist, any advice?

IN2US15 said:
Refer to the blog asylumist.com. latest blog might have some answers for you.
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Thanks for the ref, unfortunately there is no information in regards to 212a3b, this hold makes us more vulnerable for denial if you remember the paragraph in asylum approval letter that asylum status can be revoked if it is found that you have been involved in ........, obviously our case is on hold and not approved.
Now they have announced 6 countries that they want to put on the list, also our 212a3b hold opens all doors for any authority to deny if they want to use this hold for such reasons.
 
LOE said:
That should be a concern of everyone of us. At this time it is not clear as to how the new immigration policy will take shape. I am afraid too that probably our current status may be easily revoked by the new administration. It really mkes me mad to see that the democratic adminstration had almost 8 years and they did not take a concrete step to solve our problm...we should just hope for the best and wait and see.
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If your status is on hold based on 212 a 3 b (like mine) then yes you should be concerned, Hilary would probably be okay with it since she has been on it since 2007 and signed exemptions in the past herself, I don't know how Trump administration will look at it.
 
hecate said:
If your status is on hold based on 212 a 3 b (like mine) then yes you should be concerned, Hilary would probably be okay with it since she has been on it since 2007 and signed exemptions in the past herself, I don't know how Trump administration will look at it.
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1. I was looking exactly at the same question: Can the government revoke asylee/withholding of removal status? Under existing immigration law the government may revoke asylee/ withholding of removal status for various reasons and one of which is that if the application is filled after April, 1, 1997 and the beneficiary meets one of the categories of ineligibility specified in UNA s.208 (c) (2). There is no reference to 212 a 3b.

2. BIA decided in a case that when the immigration court granted asylum, then it is the immigration court that must revoke it. When it is USCIS that granted asylum, then either USCIS or the immigration court can revoke it. Once the status is revoked, if the person is in immigration court, he can then pursue new relief. It may be asylum again or something else. It means if your spouse is a citizen she may file an application for you.

3. If asylum was revoked by USCIS, then the alien conceivably is sent to immigration court. Here the question arises – can the immigration court review the revocation decision of USCIS or only adjudicate new forms of relief? Ordinarily, the immigration court is the place where decisions of the immigration agencies are reviewed in removal proceedings. If USCIS denies an application for asylum, adjustment of status, or the removal of the conditions on residence, the immigration court can review these decisions. If ICE concludes that someone is deportable for illegal conduct or a claim of U.S. Citizenship, an immigration judge reviews these conclusions. In theMatter of A-S-J-decision, the BIA concluded that the immigration judge cannot review the revocation; just provide new relief if the alien is eligible.

4. To summarize this when USCIS grants asylum, USCIS can revoke it. When the immigration court grants asylum then only the immigration court can revoke. And the Immigration court can not review the decision of UCIS. It may only grant new relief if sought by the applicant,
 
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LOE said:
1. I was looking exactly at the same question: Can the government revoke asylee/withholding of removal status? Under existing immigration law the government may revoke asylee/ withholding of removal status for various reasons and one of which is that if the application is filled after April, 1, 1997 and the beneficiary meets one of the categories of ineligibility specified in UNA s.208 (c) (2). There is no reference to 212 a 3b.

2. BIA decided in a case that when the immigration court granted asylum, then it is the immigration court that must revoke it. When it is USCIS that granted asylum, then either USCIS or the immigration court can revoke it. Once the status is revoked, if the person is in immigration court, he can then pursue new relief. It may be asylum again or something else. It means if your spouse is a citizen she may file an application for you.

3. If asylum was revoked by USCIS, then the alien conceivably is sent to immigration court. Here the question arises – can the immigration court review the revocation decision of USCIS or only adjudicate new forms of relief? Ordinarily, the immigration court is the place where decisions of the immigration agencies are reviewed in removal proceedings. If USCIS denies an application for asylum, adjustment of status, or the removal of the conditions on residence, the immigration court can review these decisions. If ICE concludes that someone is deportable for illegal conduct or a claim of U.S. Citizenship, an immigration judge reviews these conclusions. In theMatter of A-S-J-decision, the BIA concluded that the immigration judge cannot review the revocation; just provide new relief if the alien is eligible.

4. To summarize this when USCIS grants asylum, USCIS can revoke it. When the immigration court grants asylum then only the immigration court can revoke. And the Immigration court can not review the decision of UCIS. It may only grant new relief if sought by the applicant,
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Thanks for your time I filed my asylum in 1993 and was granted asylum by INS in 1998, I then applied for adjustment of status in 1999. All these laws are unpredictable, who could predict that the statement that we gave was the basis of Grant of our asylum and now with a u turn the same statement is haunting us.
 
It is now obvious that during the last few remining weeks of current administration there is no chance of changes to the inadmissibility bar as the House Republicans sent a letter today to every government agency asking them to halt all rulemaking until President-electDonald Trumptakes office.
 
I found the following information on the asylumist.com site and I would share it here.

Joseph November 25, 2016 at 2:28 pm


Hi Jason
My question is about those applications that have been put on hold for inadmisibility relating to INA 212 (a) (3) (B). And particularly those groups that meet the defination of undesignated (Tier III) terrorist organizations. I am not very hopeful that the trump adminstation may grant group exemptions specially to groups that were based in majority muslim countries. However, my quesion is what about our current immigration status. Can the government revoke an asyless status granted by the immigration court or USCIS?

REPLY

Jason Dzubow November 28, 2016 at 8:34 pm
So far, we do not know what he will do. Asylum status can be revoked if there is a reason to do so, but the Asylum Office must follow a procedure to do that, and if status is revoked, the case will go to an Immigration Court where it will be reviewed, and the person can seek asylum or other relief from removal. Take care, Jaso

 
Happy New Year to all and wish this new year will bring in good news for our pending applications.
Melanie sent me an email and informed me that the pending applications are now reducing I believe it's a slow pace but hope this wait will end this year.
 
Thanks Hecate for sharing the information. Wish you a happy new year as well. I am very optimistic that this year our pending applications will be processed. As for my application, I have filed a FOI request and still waiting for a response from the USCIS. Once I get the information I requested I will proceed with challenging the hold of my application. Meanwhile if I learn anything new I will post it.
 
LOE said:
Thanks Hecate for sharing the information. Wish you a happy new year as well. I am very optimistic that this year our pending applications will be processed. As for my application, I have filed a FOI request and still waiting for a response from the USCIS. Once I get the information I requested I will proceed with challenging the hold of my application. Meanwhile if I learn anything new I will post it.
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Please do keep us updated, thanks, I did file a FOI and realized that they connected me with a group I had nothing to do with, but so far they are ignoring all my rectification in regards.
Lawyer could not do much with this error as well due to some technicalities.
Good Luck bro
 
Hi All,

There are people who have been very very helpful to asylum seekers and asylees. Many of you know Jason Dzubow, who writes the blog asylumist.com and Dr Kate Sugarman, a medical dr who helps asylum seekers tremendously. They are organizing a refugee ball on Jan 17, 2017. I strongly encourage all to attend and those who are capable please make donations to this cause, these are selfless people working for people like you and me. Donation Link:

https://www.gofundme.com/refugee-ball?ssid=849057474&pos=1
 
While surfing on net I found this valuable information, I am sure most of you all may have found it but for those who didn't here is a copy paste.

Asylees and Muslim Refugees Who Are Already in the United States: And what about those Syrian refugees (and other refugees and asylees) who are already here and have already been granted refugee status or asylum in the United States? Deporting people who are here, with lawful status, is much more difficult than excluding people from coming here in the first place. Such people have a Constitutional right to due process of law, meaning that they cannot be deported from the U.S. without a legal procedure. Currently, that procedure involves presenting one’s case to an Immigration Judge, who then determines whether the person is eligible to remain in the United States. People who have already qualified for protection under U.S. law (which is based on our ratification of various international treaties) cannot simply be removed from the country. The procedure to remove them is long, and–given that they have already qualified for protection–under current law, they cannot be deported.

For these reasons, although Mr. Trump has vowed to send Syrian refugees back, I suspect that this will not be easily accomplished. First, it would mean a change in the law, and this requires the cooperation of Congress. As mentioned, while the Republicans have a majority of seats in Congress, there is still a powerful Democratic minority that could potentially block such a change. Also, it is likely that a significant minority of Republicans would oppose changing our humanitarian laws.

And even if the law related to asylum were changed, there are several other laws that people currently in the U.S. might use to avoid removal. For example, those who fear harm as defined by the UN Convention Against Torture might assert a defense based on that treaty. Those who have been here for longer periods of time might be eligible for other forms of relief, like Cancellation of Removal or adjustment of status based on a family relationship. In short, people who are living in the U.S. and who have refugee or asylum status have several layers of protection that will likely insulate them from any effort to have them removed. And any effort to make the sweeping changes needed to force such people to leave will require unified Congressional action, something that we are unlikely to see.

Of course, if such changes could somehow be made, there are policy implications here as well. What will it mean to send back Syrian refugees (mostly women and children) to that war torn region? How will it affect our moral standing in the world? What would it mean for international law in general if we abrogate our treaty obligations? And what would be the “ripple effect” of such a policy?
 
Thanks for providing the information. I agree that it will be very difficult if not impossible for the Trump administration to revoke the asylee and/or refugee status of those who have been granted the status through due process. We must wait and see in next few days when president Trump comes up with the new executive order. In his press conference, today he talked about the new executive order and he specifically mentioned that his priority would be to deport hardcore criminals and those who are threat to national security or having links to terrorist organizations. Those of us whose applications for immigration benefits are on hold because of material support law would be in a very difficult situation as technically our applications are on hold because we have been identified to be members of terrorist groups/ or provided support to organiztions regraded to be terrorist organizations under US law.
 
LOE said:
Thanks for providing the information. I agree that it will be very difficult if not impossible for the Trump administration to revoke the asylee and/or refugee status of those who have been granted the status through due process. We must wait and see in next few days when president Trump comes up with the new executive order. In his press conference, today he talked about the new executive order and he specifically mentioned that his priority would be to deport hardcore criminals and those who are threat to national security or having links to terrorist organizations. Those of us whose applications for immigration benefits are on hold because of material support law would be in a very difficult situation as technically our applications are on hold because we have been identified to be members of terrorist groups/ or provided support to organiztions regraded to be terrorist organizations under US law.
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That was exactly what I was worried about, material support hold creates all possibilities and who knows how they will proceed with investigations. What if they put 212a3b hold applicants in detention while proceeding with decision etc.
 
hecate said:
That was exactly what I was worried about, material support hold creates all possibilities and who knows how they will proceed with investigations. What if they put 212a3b hold applicants in detention while proceeding with decision etc.
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From my conversations with three different attorneys I concluded that it will not be easy for the administration to revoke the current immigration status of individual affected by the material support provisions of the immigration law without due process. In other words, if the administration wants to take the extra ordinary step of trying to revoke the status of those people it must go to the court. It cannot be revoked administratively. However, the administration may not grant wavier anymore and they can do that easily and unfortunately, we have no legal recourse to challenge it should the government continue to deny group based/ or individual wavier.
 
LOE said:
From my conversations with three different attorneys I concluded that it will not be easy for the administration to revoke the current immigration status of individual affected by the material support provisions of the immigration law without due process. In other words, if the administration wants to take the extra ordinary step of trying to revoke the status of those people it must go to the court. It cannot be revoked administratively. However, the administration may not grant wavier anymore and they can do that easily and unfortunately, we have no legal recourse to challenge it should the government continue to deny group based/ or individual wavier.
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Thanks for your diligence in replying, My question will be if they cannot do much here what could be the purpose of holding the adjudication in our applications unless they may have other remedies to bring against our pending cases.
 
hecate said:
Thanks for your diligence in replying, My question will be if they cannot do much here what could be the purpose of holding the adjudication in our applications unless they may have other remedies to bring against our pending cases.
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I guess it seems like our applications have been in limbo for politics rather than national security concerns. And honestly, I do not see any light at the end of the tunnel no matter how deep I may look into it…I was talking with an immigration attorney in Canada about the possibility of moving to Canada and reapplying for asylum there. His advice was to be patient for a while as Canada may reconsider the Third Country Safety Agreement with US. I think we should be prepared to expect the unexpected at any moment now.
 
LOE said:
I guess it seems like our applications have been in limbo for politics rather than national security concerns. And honestly, I do not see any light at the end of the tunnel no matter how deep I may look into it…I was talking with an immigration attorney in Canada about the possibility of moving to Canada and reapplying for asylum there. His advice was to be patient for a while as Canada may reconsider the Third Country Safety Agreement with US. I think we should be prepared to expect the unexpected at any moment now.
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Let's just stay connected with current situation and any notices regarding 212a3b or asylum related issues for those on hold and post any updates while I will also keep my head up if I find any update.
This is all we can do.
 
I would like to share a portion of the revised executive order signed by President Trump today.

(e) This order shall not apply to an individual who has been granted asylum, to a refugee who has already been admitted to the United States, or to an individual granted withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture. Nothing in this order shall be construed to limit the ability of an individual to seek asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the Convention Against Torture, consistent with the laws of the United States.
 
Hi All,
I have been married to a U S citizen for several years, since after my case was put on hold. Due to the terrorism hold on the organization I belonged and on the members like myself I didn't think trying the "marriage way" will work. So, I didn't try it all these years until last year.
I filed for permanent residency, did the interview and, I was granted the status and the green card came immediately after that. I left for my country stayed for a dream vacation fo few months and now I am back in the U S.
I suggest those who are married to a U S citizen or are free to get married to one should try it. It may depend on the individual officer who does the interviewing. I don't know. It's worth trying though. The only risk there is is that you may have to abandon your application that was on hold. I wish you all good luck
 
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