Black immigrants face systemic bias and discrimination in U.S. immigration courts, leading to a lack of due process and substantial delays in their cases.
That’s the finding from a multi-year study, “Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of U.S. Immigration Courts,” published this week by the non-profit Ohio Immigrant Alliance that found Black migrants regularly experience assumptions of guilt or deception from judges, skepticism as to their reasons for asylum, and hostility.
The report’s authors interviewed fifteen Black immigrants, mainly from Mauritania, and nine immigration attorneys with working experience in U.S. immigration courts. “I can swear, I can put my hand on the Quran and swear that if I were white, my case would be different,” said one anonymous participant.
The study’s authors are calling for substantial policy changes to reduce barriers and discrimination confronting immigrants from countries in Africa and the Caribbean, among other regions.
Immigrants from Mauritania, on Africa’s northwest coast, are fleeing ethnic conflict and political oppression, including forced slavery. Despite being outlawed, the practice persists due to a historical caste system that leaves darker skinned ethnic groups—namely the Haratin people—without legal protections.
According to the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index, there are an estimated 150,000 enslaved people in Mauritania. Along with slavery, migrants are seeking asylum from state and sexual violence. Many people fled the country at a time when activists were being detained, killed, and tortured by the state.
The report highlights widespread ignorance regarding conditions in countries like Mauritania on the part immigration court judges. Reportedly, asylum seekers’ claims of risk were downplayed and disputed despite evidence.
A respondent named George who went through the Scottsdale Immigration Court in Arizona said the judge appeared “in a hurry to go somewhere” and imposed time limits on George’s answers to questions explaining his asylum qualifications.
“It would’ve been better if the judge had… maybe done a bit of research on the consequences of what we were discussing in court,” said George. “Unfortunately, the judge didn’t have an idea.”
According to his account, the judge at one point asked why George had not attempted to cross into another state. “What he failed to understand was, unlike the U.S., my country’s so small, it’s an equivalent of one state, probably a state like Texas… So, him saying that I could have escaped to another state didn’t really make sense.”
Additionally, while persecution by a government qualifies someone for asylum, immigration judges frequently required evidence that could only be provided by the state in question, an impossible ask for immigrants fleeing state persecution.
Morrison sought asylum in the United States after his brother was killed in Cameroon. During his immigration hearing, the judge asked him to provide a death certificate for his brother.
“I told him that my younger brother was killed during a peaceful protest,” said Morrison. “But I’m like, how can I provide a death certificate while it is the same government which is responsible for providing those certificates?”
The report contained dozens of pages of migrant testimonies citing a lack of language support for West African languages that led to communication barriers, poor or no legal representation, and an eagerness to detain or deport individuals over minor infractions.
Immigration courts work differently than civil courts in that migrants do not have a right to government appointed counsel and so often struggle to find legal representation. Participants reported that some private attorneys only made efforts to get their clients work permits so that they could pay their legal fees, rather than pursue lasting resolutions.
Demba Ndiath, advocacy director with the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, says a lack of legal representation, which is common, can literally freeze a person’s case.
“Once it hits 150 days from the day that you submitted your case, allows you to apply for a work permit. So being able to work and get your money and pay the lawyer,” he said. “But what they do is, they stop the clock if you don’t have a lawyer. And there, you’re stuck. You don’t have a work permit, you don’t have a social security card, you are not working. How do you hire a lawyer in that situation?”
Ndiath says the challenges detailed in the study predate the current administration, though current policy has made long delays for Ndiath’s clients even worse, adding more stress and removing guarantees of due process.
“With the Trump administration, we’re starting to notice many people, after they complete 150 days, they apply for a work permit and they’re not getting their work permit on time. They sometimes work two to three months, or they get rejected for a very, very random reason.”
Among the study’s recommendations are a call for more clarity on eligible criteria for asylum, such as political persecution, torture, etc. Other recommendations include not breaking apart families with kids and following due process, issues that have been raised in other cases across the country, especially on the southern border.
Like immigrant communities nationwide, Ndiath says he sees growing fear and anxiety among his clients. Many migrants from Africa, Haiti and elsewhere have settled in formerly blighted areas of the Midwest that were falling to decay.
“Places here in Ohio were almost dead,” he noted, adding the influx of new immigrants has helped revive neighborhoods. “They hope that their American neighbors or friends will just understand what they’re going through and show some, I don’t know, some empathy.”
The study is the sixth and final installment in the Ohio Immigrant Alliance series, “Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of US Immigration Courts.” Read each report in the series here.
Image via Public Domain Archive
