Last month, I represented an African human rights lawyer, with evident scars from his torture, who was prosecuted upon entering the United States for using borrowed documents. After serving six months in jail, he was transferred to Immigration and Naturalization Service custody for an asylum hearing on whether he had a credible fear of being persecuted in his home country (in violation of U.S. law that requires a credible-fear hearing within the first few days of entry). Although my organization has an agreement with the Asylum Office that they will notify us of all arriving asylum seekers, even the Asylum Office did not learn about this man until six months after he arrived here seeking safety. He returned to jail after his credible-fear hearing to wait for his full asylum trial.
At the Detention and Removal Office, we met a Muslim woman and her two elementary-age children two days after they were detained at the airport. They were on their way to a “family” jail north of Washington, D.C. Fortunately, a professional acquaintance arrived and offered her own home to the three of them. The detention office changed its plans and released them.
