Political refugees getting a second chance at asylum

Judges fumble asylum cases
Refugee was sent back to Sudan to face jail, beatings

By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and Jon Yates
Tribune staff reporters
Published September 24, 2006


Denied asylum and ordered out of the U.S., Nourain Niam spent three years running for his life in Africa. He was arrested and beaten, he said, uncertain whether he would ever find sanctuary.

But in an extraordinary turn of events, Niam returned to Chicago this month, living evidence of a widespread breakdown in America's immigration court system.

opposition party, is the first in a wave of political refugees who are getting a second chance at asylum, after federal appeals courts found grievous errors in the way their cases were handled.

In one year alone, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remanded 40 percent of the 136 immigration cases it heard--rejecting rulings of the administrative judges in stern and often scathing language.

U.S. Appeals Judge Richard Posner, who led the charge, called the immigration judge's analysis in Niam's case "so inadequate as to raise questions of adjudicative competence."

Still, it was only with repeated interventions by the the appeals court--and a little luck--that Niam ended up on a plane headed to O'Hare International Airport, his eyes filled with tears as he caught sight of Chicago's skyline.

"I thought of the last three years in Africa," the father of two quietly recalled, his deep and steady voice giving little indication of his emotions. "I felt my life was in danger. I could be killed or arrested at any time."

In fact, he said, men he believes to be Sudanese agents operating in Chad did seize him in 2005. He said he was pistol-whipped and kicked, then left unconscious for three days in a worm-infested jail. He was eventually released through the efforts of a friend.

That, he said, puts his struggle here in perspective.

"The United States, whatever it is, you will not see a better place in terms of freedom, in terms of human rights," he said.

His troubles are not over, though. His wife, son and a gravely ill U.S.-born daughter were not allowed to return with him. They remain in Africa while Niam fights for asylum and a reunion.

"My dream is to see my daughter, my wife and my son beside me," he said.

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. government created new immigration guidelines that officials said would help secure the country's borders.

Among them was a measure by former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft designed to clear a stockpile of cases clogging immigration courts, an arm of the Justice Department. Ashcroft's idea was to overhaul the system's primary review panel, the Board of Immigration Appeals.

In doing so, he greatly expanded the types and number of immigration appeals that could be reviewed by a single judge, instead of a three-judge panel, and could be decided with a one-sentence opinion. He called the directives "streamlining." Critics called it rubber-stamping.

The effect was almost immediate. Immigrants, feeling their claims were not properly reviewed, flooded the federal appeals courts with their cases.

Federal judges reacted too.

Posner wrote some of the harshest opinions, questioning whether asylum seekers were being denied fundamental rights. In one ruling, Posner asked whether immigration judges were properly trained. In another, he called an immigration judge's opinion "hopelessly incomplete" and part of a "systemic failure."

"The 7th Circuit [of federal appeals court] took the lead," said Crystal Williams, deputy director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "But other circuits like the 3rd and the 1st began to weigh in."

The Washington D.C.-based organization estimated there have been more than 100 remands across the country since Posner and the federal courts began to identify a pattern of errors.