Joint Public Comment Opposing Proposed Rule

September 21, 2020

Lauren Alder Reid, Assistant Director

Office of Policy, Executive Office for Immigration Review 5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2616

Falls Church, VA 22041

Re: RIN 1125-AA96; EOIR Docket No. 19-0022; A.G. Order No. 4800-2020 – Public

Comment Opposing Proposed Rule on Appellate Procedures and Decisional Finality in Immigration Proceedings and Administrative Closure

We, a group of Asian American organizations in Minnesota, urge the Department of Justice to withdraw the proposed rule on Appellate Procedures and Decisional Finality in Immigration Proceedings and Administrative Closure published on August 25th, 2020.

As nonprofit organizations, we aim to augment the voices and visibility of the communities we serve, and as such, we support their call to be part of the public comment process.

Understanding and responding to the complexity of the U.S. immigration systems takes time, especially for U.S. residents and citizens who have no experience or expertise in these areas. Therefore, we request an extension to the comment period to 60 days so that interested community members have adequate time to respond to the proposed rule.

With news of increased deportations of individuals to Cambodian, Laos, and Vietnam this year, our organizations became very concerned. More than half of the Asian population in Minnesota is Southeast Asian, of which the largest percentage is Hmong. Our organizations serve and advocate for many individuals who came to the United States as the children of refugees, living here for on average 40 years. Some now face dire immigration consequences, including permanent separation from their families and community here in the United States.

Moreover, deportation for Hmong, Lao, and Vietnamese refugees places them in serious jeopardy of persecution and harm if they are removed from the United States. Some of those facing removal proceedings were born in refugee camps and have never set foot in the countries to which they would be returned. Some do not speak their native language and have no familial ties to that country. For these individuals, removal can mean life on the margins of society at best, and imprisonment or death at worst.

The proposed rule will eliminate longstanding tools that ensure fairness in immigration court, and strip due process rights for vulnerable individuals.

The proposed rule would take away important protections for these community members, such as the ability for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to obtain provisional waivers and legalize their immigration status. Noncitizens in removal proceedings can only obtain a provisional waiver if the immigration judge administratively closes those proceedings. By taking away the authority of Judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals to administratively close cases, a backdoor is created to end provisional waiver eligibility for many in removal proceedings.

Additionally, sua sponte motions to reopen are instrumental for those who qualify. The normal 90-day period for reopening does not contemplate the scenarios faced by our communities, as the threat of actual removal can come many years, even decades after the original removal order. By the time the threat of deportation becomes imminent, many individuals are eligible for relief for which they were not previously. We have worked with several families who filed motions to reopen with immigration courts, which were granted based on the court’s sua sponte authority. Without this ability for judges to grant relief, communities would be broken. U.S. citizen spouses would become single-parents, children would be deprived of their parents, and elderly parents would face the reopening of war-time wounds from the loss of their children, a grave injustice to our communities.

Furthermore, in our experience, unaffordable and inaccessible immigration legal services lead individuals to appear pro se at their first immigration court appearance. Often there are poor technological connections and no interpretation services. Many of the individuals we work with were in removal proceedings based on injustices within the criminal legal system, where they entered pleas to convictions without any legal knowledge of immigration consequences. Faced with such barriers of navigating the court systems, many community members have simply fallen back on a routine with their lives without any realization of the long-term harm that could befall them.

Under the proposed rule, restricting the Immigration court’s sua sponte authority, many community members who have been able to show not only rehabilitation, but extraordinary contributions to their community, family, and adopted country, will be left without any recourse. Family members, including U.S. citizens and permanent resident spouses and children, rely on the common-sense ability to seek acts of mercy with the immigration court. This rule would cut that ability off. The proposed rule alters procedures that have been in place for decades, leaving many who qualify for lawful status with no relief from deportation.

For all the above reasons, the Department of Justice should immediately withdraw the proposed rule.

Respectfully,

Bo Thao-Urabe
Executive and Network Director, Coalition of Asian American Leaders bo@caalmn.org

Sunny Chanthanouvon
Executive Director, Lao Assistance Center
sunny@laocenter.org

Jon Vang
Anti-deportation Lead Organizer, ManForward
avp.jvang@gmail.com

Montha Chum
Director and Co-Founder, ReleaseMN8
montha@releasemn8.org

Apichart Klaysingha
President, SiengKane Lao MN
Apichart.klaysingha@yahoo.com

Xay Yang
Queer Justice Director, Transforming Generations xayy@transforminggenerations.org

Thai Lor
Families Together Group