“Because of unfair U.S. immigration laws, refugee women who seek asylum in the U.S. often face significant barriers in striving to win the protection they deserve,” said Eleanor Acer, Director of the Asylum Program at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. “When a woman with a gender-based asylum claim is barred from asylum because of summary deportation procedures or an unrealistic filing deadline, or when a woman fleeing from domestic violence is detained, and forced to choose between a lengthy separation from her young child and abandoning her claim for refuge, something is very wrong with our laws and procedures.”

The challenges that women face have only increased in the last year in the wake of government measures taken in the aftermath of September 11; many of these measures have deprived non-citizens of due process. As a result, refugee women, already among the most vulnerable of the already-vulnerable refugee population, are at even greater risk of unfair detention, deportation or mistreatment. Among these new government measures are the expansion of INS detention authority, the gutting of the immigration appeals process, and the transfer of the INS's immigration functions to the Department of Homeland Security - a transfer that will occur in March 2003.

The United States has a long history of protecting refugees, yet the ability of refugees to gain asylum was undermined in 1996 by a new immigration law called the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.” Some of the barriers created by that law include:

• A summary “expedited removal” process which gives INS inspectors at airports and borders - rather than trained immigration judges - the power to order the immediate deportation of a person who arrives in the U.S. without proper travel documents;
• “Mandatory detention” of asylum seekers who are subject to the expedited process; and
• A filing deadline that bars most asylum claims not filed within one year of a refugee’s arrival.

The experience of Beatrice Okum, a Sudanese Christian refugee, illustrates the severe impact of these barriers on refugee women. At age 15, Beatrice was forced into slavery for 14 years after fleeing her home in Southern Sudan and being separated from her mother, brothers and sisters. When she finally was able to escape slavery, she came to the U.S. to seek asylum. Beatrice was handcuffed, shackled and brought to a detention facility where she was jailed for nearly five months.

Beatrice recalls her time in the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey, “watching daily the hopelessness, the ache, the anguish on the faces of fellow inmates as they are filled with fear and uncertainty, because we are subjected to a system where hope often dies before it is realized.” Much of her time in detention invoked flashbacks to her experiences in slavery. “I am only fighting for freedom,” she said during her period of detention. “I only want to be safe.” Beatrice was finally released after being granted asylum in 2002.

The Lawyers Committee urges the U.S. government to restore fairness to the asylum process so that refugees like Beatrice, who have already suffered so much, are treated fairly and humanely. To ensure this, the U.S. asylum system must be reformed to:

• Limit expedited removal to immigration emergencies.
• Restore due process and entrust deportation decisions to trained immigration judges.
• Improve the conduct of “secondary” inspection by immigration authorities.
• Reform asylum parole procedures and provide for immigration judge review of INS parole denials.
• Implement alternatives to detention for asylum seekers who present no threat to the community.
• Eliminate the one-year filing deadline.

“Restoring fairness to the asylum process is more important than ever,” Acer said. “A fair asylum system is essential to ensure that the U.S. lives up to its obligation to protect the victims of human rights abuses who flee here in search of refuge.”

“Restoring fairness to the asylum process is more important than ever,” Acer said. “A fair asylum system is essential to ensure that the U.S. lives up to its obligation to protect the victims of human rights abuses who flee here in search of refuge.”

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