Immigration 101: Why Not Just Ask for Asylum?

Note: This is the third in a series of posts focusing on the illegal immigrant situation in the US. While much of this is informed by my personal feelings and opinions, I do not claim to be unbiased, I have tried to share sources whenever possible. Please feel free to share with me your thoughts, but I ask that you would do so in love. Any comments given that are hurtful will be deleted, though they cannot be deleted from my mind, so consider our relationship when posting please.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

As I mentioned in my last post on this topic, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seems to indicate that the only way to apply for asylum today is if you are already in the country (1). So the logical question follows, why don’t people just ask for asylum after they enter the country? Sadly, it seems that for many, if not most, this will do no good.

A number of people entered the country illegally last month in the hopes of seeking asylum, the only way our government has allowed them to do it. When they were met by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents, they immediately asked for asylum, and were denied the hearing USCIS says they will receive. Our law says that if someone asks for asylum they are entitled to a hearing of their case. A hearing by no means guarantees someone’s request will be granted, in 2023 only about 14.4% of cases heard were granted asylum (2), but a hearing should at least be given.

Instead of following the asylum process, ICE put these people on military planes and flew them to Panama and Costa Rica where they were detained in a way that doesn't fit any of our laws or policies. Initially they were put into a hotel where no one was allowed in or out. No lawyers or aid workers or press were allowed into the hotel and no one was allowed to leave. People inside held up signs in the windows trying to explain their plight and ask for help (10). This got the attention of international media and before long many inquiries were being made into the situation. Did this help the people? Sadly, no. The opposite took place, in fact.

With all the media attention, Panama decided a hotel in the city wasn’t the best option for housing these refugees. A number of them agreed to go back to their country and were put on flights. I've got to imagine a great deal of pressure was put on them to do this after all they'd gone through to get this far. The rest were loaded on busses and taken to a camp in the jungle, far outside of town. How do we know this? Some of them still had their phones and had been able to communicate their tracking information to the press. This wasn't just one crazy story a guy told, this really happened to a lot of people.

Conditions in the camp were, and are, terrible. It's hot and humid. People are covered in mosquito bites. They aren't allowed access to call a lawyer or contract their families. And this week we find out that they aren't receiving medical aid. One was a diabetic who wasn't given access to insulin, another had HIV and was without medication and one woman had reportedly been vomiting for a week.

At the beginning of this week a bus pulled into town from the camp and dropped off 65 people in the street. They have no money, nowhere to go, and no way to get there, but Panama says, “They’re not our problem anymore.” They've been given 30 days to get out of the country, with a potential 60 day extension, but how are they to do that? Panama is just trying to wash it's hands of the human rights infractions it found itself roped into by President Trump.

These people aren't just numbers that we can dismiss, they are real people with real stories. Artemis is from Iran. As a young girl, she visited a church in Turkey while on a trip and felt such hope that she acquired a Bible and smuggled it home. Over time, God worked in her heart and brought Christians across her path. Eventually, she too came to know Jesus as her Savior, but now she had a problem. Being born into a Muslim family, this was considered a conversion which, under the current ruling party, is punishable by death. It was for people like Artemis that our asylum laws were developed, but she was never given the chance to pursue it. When she came into contact with CBP, she asked over and over to speak with someone about Asylum and was told, “No,” and, “Later.” Then she was shackled, loaded onto a loud, scary military plane, and taken to Panama (7).

Iranian migrants who were held in a Panamanian immigration camp after being deported from the U.S. arrive in Panama City on Saturday.Matias Delacroix / AP

Hayatullah Omagh, a 29-year-old who fled Afghanistan in 2022 after the Taliban took control, was among the refugees returned by bus to Panama city this week (3). He too cannot return home because his government will kill him. What is he to do? He's not a bad guy, not a criminal. Panama reported that none of the detainees had criminal records. He's a real person with a real problem. You can learn about more of these precious people, people made in the image of our God that He deeply loves, in this article.

And it's not just Panama to a hotel, or even a camp, that refugees are being sent to. President Trump has been sending them to Guantanamo Bay, a US Naval prison inside a naval base in Cuba known for some of the worst human rights infractions. He told the press that only, “The worst of the worst,” would be sent there, but it turns out his bar is pretty low for that. One man was arrested for shoplifting at Target. Another was riding his bike on the wrong side of the road (4). This hardly merits being shackled and shipped off to one of the worst, if not the worst, American prisons. Unbelievably, their misfortune was mocked and celebrated by the White House when they posted a video on X titled, “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight” (5). I wanted to vomit at the literal pleasure (that is the definition of ASMR) the administration of our country was taking in the abuse they were dishing out, not to mention it was filmed in my own backyard. Thankfully, these refugees have been returned to US soil as of this week as well, but to what end only God knows (6).

I was surprised to learn that it's not just illegal immigrants who are being detained! A couple of friends on holiday in Mexico decided to cross over and visit California for a bit. Their documents were all in order and the crossing should have been completely legal, but one of the friends, who is German, was pulled aside and has been in ICE custody ever since. She was interviewed last month and shared that she was kept in solitary confinement for eight days when she was first detained. She's not wanting to immigrate to the US, at the time she was on a three week trip, but now she just wants to go home to Germany. Her mother had attempted to purchase her tickets, but it all rests now on US government approval (9).

Becky Burke, a young woman from the UK, faces a similar problem. She is being detained at the ICE facility nearest me in Tacoma, Washington. She was also on holiday and had signed up with a service that matches people with families to stay with in exchange for helping around the house. She wasn't even trying to enter the United States, but leave it enroute to Vancouver, Canada where her next lodging was. The border official decided that helping around the house violated the no working clause of her tourist visa and turned her over to ICE. Presumably, the process for her involves getting a judge’s approval to go home. The challenge with that is President Trump fired dozens of judges in the immigration system and gave 80 more an early retirement settlement. Prior to this, the judges’ dockets were overloaded with 500-700 cases apiece. With the cutbacks, this has grown exponentially, so no one knows when Becky’s case will be heard. In the meantime, she's sitting in an orange jumpsuit, she only gets one a week so I'd imagine it smells pretty ripe, in a 100 bed ward that is completely full. Some of her roommates have literally been there for years. Privacy is unheard of and sleep is a thing of the past as the bright, overhead lights come on at 6:30AM every morning. You can read more about Becky’s story here (8).

Here's the Thing: We all know the system is flawed, but this is ridiculous. Beyond prayer, I don't know what to do with this besides share it with you. Perhaps someone out there knows how we can begin to right these horrific wrongs.