Report: Don’t Tell Me About Your Fear’: Elimination of Longstanding Safeguard Leads to Systematic Violations of Refugee Law

In the June 2024 asylum ban rule, the Biden administration eliminated a safeguard to protect people seeking asylum from being summarily deported without a chance to present their asylum claim. This provision, included in an Interim Final Rule that went into effect immediately on June 5, eliminated the requirement that immigration officers ask people arriving in the United States about their fear of return.

This change has had consequences. Based on interviews conducted by legal service organizations with asylum seekers impacted by this policy, immigration officials are failing to comply with U.S. and international refugee law and summarily deporting people who fear return without a screening (credible fear interview) of their asylum claim.  

Immigration officers are removing people from the United States without a credible fear interview even when they are required by law to be referred for a CFI because they express fear of return, including survivors of gender-based violence, people whose family members were assassinated, LGBTQI+ people, individuals with visible marks and bruises from attacks, and people fleeing death threats and other harms with young children. Many people who are detained and processed under expedited removal are not given an opportunity to express their fear of return and are summarily deported without a credible fear interview, with immigration officers routinely telling them they are not allowed to speak, that there is no more asylum, and that they are being deported. Elimination of the safeguard is fueling family separation, where family members are arbitrarily removed from the United States without a credible fear interview while their loved ones are referred for such an interview, including when their asylum cases could have been processed together.

This August 2024 publication, ‘Don’t Tell Me About Your Fear’: Elimination of Longstanding Safeguard Leads to Systematic Violations of Refugee Law, issued by Hope Border Institute, Human Rights First, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Kino Border Initiative, RAICES, and Refugees International follows a joint report issued in July 2024 by the National Immigrant Justice Center in collaboration with other organizations, which documents the consequences of the first six weeks of implementation of the IFR.

Download the full report here.

KJ