[ThinkProgress] Last month, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency quietly deported dozens of African immigrants who were trying to seek asylum in the United States.
Sixty-three men who were unable to secure visas to stay in the country legally on humanitarian relief claims, according to a source within ICE who spoke to ThinkProgress on condition of anonymity. ​Activists who spoke with deported individuals said they were sent back to Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.
Immigration activists believe that number may be closer to 90. They also say many of these men shouldn’t have been targeted by ICE in the first place because they had already passed their credible fear interviews -- a preliminary step in the asylum process to determine whether immigrants would be placed in grave danger if they’re returned to their home countries.
Some lawyers say that black immigrants have the odds stacked against them in the immigration court system. ICE generally requires immigrants to have a sponsor who’s a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. The agency also has stringent requirements for identity documents, which is problematic for immigrants from countries like Somalia where the government didn’t always have the ability to issue those documents, according to Jessica Shulruff Schneider, a supervising attorney at the Americans for Immigrant Justice.
"Many of the individuals that are Africans don’t have close family members or friends to assist them from the outside," said Shulruff Schneider. "It makes it virtually impossible to fight your case." |