Dear Sir or Madam:
I work for a pro bono immigration advocacy project in New York. Last Summer I worked alongside Church World Service in Guam where we represented over 1000 Burmese asylum-seekers. As a consequence of our work in Guam, UNHCR recently referred a case to us of a Burmese asylum-seeker who somehow managed to enter American Samoa. He is Baptist and Kachin and fears that he will be killed if returned to Burma.
The U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) has agreed to send an INS Asylum Office to American Samoa in early February to interview him. The interviewer will apply international refugee standards (i.e., to meet U.S. international obligations of non-refoulement). According to INS, U.S. domestic law does not apply to asylum-seekers in American Samoa. Note: domestic asylum law apparently applies in Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. So, the interview will be a quasi refugee interview similar to an interview that might take place at a U.S. Consulate abroad.
If he is found to have a claim to refugee/asylum status, the INS will do one of two things:
1) parole him into the U.S. where he will receive a full-blown asylum interview invoking more liberal U.S. domestic law asylum standards, or
2) get him residence status in American Samoa, i.e., resettle him in American Samoa without the opportunity to enter the U.S.
If he is found not to have a valid claim, the INS will do neither of the above. Consequently, his residence permit in American Samoa will expire in April and presumably he will be required to return to Burma.
My questions are the following:
1) Why does domestic U.S. asylum law not apply to an asylum-seeker in American Samoa?
2) If INS decides to permit him to resettle and to seek residence status for him in American Samoa (in lieu of paroling him into the U.S. mainland), what right would he have, as a resident of American Samoa, to enter the U.S.?
3) Do you have any sample briefs, human rights documentation available that you would be willing to share with regard to the plight of Kachin Baptists in Burma?
Thank you very much for your kind attention to this request.
Respectfully Yours,
T.J. Mills
Project Attorney
Justice For Our Neighbors Immigration Project
United Methodist Committee on Relief
212 870 3507
917 701 8966
FAX: 212 870- 3508
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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