PRESS RELEASE
April 30,
2012 - Washington, D.C. – On Friday, April 27, immigration
attorneys Jan Pederson and Michelle Kobler of Pederson Immigration
Law Group, P.C., secured a landmark immigration court decision finding that
their client, a gay Bolivian man and PTSD patient, is eligible for asylum despite
not filing his application for almost ten years, well after the one-year filing
deadline. It is extremely rare for asylum cases with this kind of delay to
succeed, and no binding case law yet exists with respect to exemptions to the
one-year filing deadline.
Judge John Bryant of the Arlington Immigration Court found that the man’s
severe post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression brought on by
years of discrimination, torture, and sexual abuse in Bolivia
based on his sexual orientation, constituted
an “extraordinary circumstance” that prevented him from meeting the one-year
filing deadline for asylum claims. The Department of Homeland Security
opposed the granting of asylum solely on the basis of
the one-year bar.
In 1996, Congress erected a statutory one-year bar
that requires asylum applicants to apply for asylum within one
year of arriving in the United States, except if circumstances in the country
change in the interim or if “extraordinary circumstances” prevent
the applicant from meeting the one-year filing deadline
The law was enacted as a measure to prevent fraudulent asylum claims, but it has had
the unintended effect of banning legitimate asylum seekers from
the asylum process. A 2010 paper in the William & Mary Law Review,
“Rejecting Refugees: Homeland Security’s Administration of the One-Year Bar to
Asylum,” estimates that since April 1998 the Department
of Homeland Security has rejected more than 15,000 asylum applications simply
because of the one-year filing deadline.
Judge Bryant found that applying the
one-year bar to Matter of J-A-
would have violated Congress’ legislative intent because the respondent was a
minor when he arrived, did not know that the law protected him, and suffered
from a medical disability that prevented him from making a timely filing.
Pederson and Kobler applaud Judge
Bryant’s clear pronouncement that the government should not use the one-year
bar to arbitrarily deny deserving asylum seekers.
“The one-year bar has been shown to disproportionately
impact the LGBT community in America,” said Pederson. “So many are unaware of
the availability of asylum based on sexual orientation; so many are suffering
from internalized homophobia and are unable to speak of the horrific treatment
in their home countries, and a very high number suffer from mental illnesses
preventing them from filing for asylum.
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Redacted filings are available
upon request. The government has waived appeal, so there will be no written
decision. To obtain more information about this case, or to schedule an
interview with the attorneys, contact John Flanagan at
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