SILVER SPRING, Md – HIAS strongly decries a new memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that will subject certain recently arrived refugees to mandatory arrest and detention.
Under the new policy, resettled refugees who have not adjusted their immigration status within their first year will be treated as if their refugee status is conditional and forced to report to DHS custody. If they do not, they may be arrested and detained for an unspecified period of time.
“This policy is a transparent effort to detain and potentially deport thousands of people who are legally present in this country, people the U.S. government itself welcomed after years of extreme vetting,” said Beth Oppenheim, HIAS CEO. “They were promised safety and the chance to rebuild their lives. Instead, DHS is now threatening them with arrest and indefinite detention.”
The move puts thousands of refugees at risk, after being welcomed to the United States with a promise of protection. These are people who fled persecution and extreme danger from all around the world – from Syria to Sudan, Myanmar to Guatemala to Afghanistan.
“I have never seen anything like this in my 25 years of refugee protection work,” Oppenheim continued, “This memo was done in secret, with zero coordination with the organizations that serve refugees. It is a betrayal of our values and our legal commitments, and it will cause extraordinary harm.”
With this change, paperwork delays and other administrative issues will be used as a pretext to thrust entire communities into fear, uncertainty, and trauma. Refugees are already the most vetted population of travelers to the United States, having already undergone years of screening prior to arrival. After their first year, they apply for an adjustment of status, but it is completely out of their control how quickly their paperwork will be processed.
Resettlement of vulnerable refugees has been a bipartisan priority supported by the U.S. government for more than four decades. It simultaneously saves lives and enriches communities across the country. This move follows a year of attacks to that legacy, as refugee admissions were halted, the refugee cap reduced to the lowest in history, and the systems and structures of the program dismantled, leaving hundreds of thousands of refugees stranded overseas.
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