The Honorable John Ashcroft                                  
Attorney General
Department of Justice

The Honorable Thomas J. Ridge                                      
Secretary of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Security

RE:  Prosecution of Asylum Seekers

Dear Attorney General Ashcroft and Secretary Ridge:

We write on behalf of a diverse coalition of faith-based, human rights, immigrant rights and refugee rights organizations around the country to express our concern about the increasing criminal prosecution of asylum seekers who rely on false documents to enter the United States.  Such prosecutions penalize refugees for using what is often their only means of escaping persecution and undermine the legal and ethical commitment of the United States to protecting those displaced by armed conflict and human rights abuses.

It recently came to our attention that asylum seekers arriving in Miami and Washington, DC are increasingly charged with document fraud.  This practice is not only out of keeping with that demonstrated in other ports of entry, but is also contradictory to U.S. law.   U.S. regulations recognize that refugees typically have no other recourse than to rely on false documents to escape persecution in their homelands; section 8 C.F.R. 270.2 (j) states that asylum seekers should not be fined for their use of fraudulent documents provided that they present themselves without delay to immigration authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry.  The Board of Immigration Appeals, moreover, has stated that ""there may be reasons fully consistent with the claim of asylum that will cause a person to possess false documents, such as the creation and use of a false document to escape persecution by facilitating travel"" (In re O-D-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 1079, 1083 (BIA 1998).

Moreover, international law recognizes the reality that refugees often have no choice but to resort to false documents.  The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol to the Convention, to which the United States is a party, imposes on states the obligation not to penalize refugees who enter or seek admission to their territory illegally.  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees recently reinforced this principle through an advisory opinion that expresses concern about the U.S. prosecution of asylum seekers for the use of false documents before they have received a final decision in their asylum cases, noting that this practice is inconsistent with international standards (copy attached).

The effect that a conviction of document fraud has on an asylum seeker is devastating.  He or she may be rendered ineligible for asylum and returned to a country to face further human rights abuses or even torture.

Refugees often have no choice but to use false travel papers in order to escape persecution.  Many Jewish refugees, for example, were only able to escape Nazi Germany by using false documents.  In fact, the United States has hailed Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who issued thousands of false passports to help Jews flee Nazi persecution, as a hero and granted him honorary U.S. citizenship.

We understand that the U.S. government faces serious security challenges and must take all reasonable steps to protect the security of the American people.  For this reason, we are dismayed that precious prosecutorial and law enforcement resources would be wasted on penalizing a population that U.S. and international law recognize as particularly vulnerable. We urge you to take steps to ensure that the United States acts consistently with these fundamental values and obligations.

Thank you for your attention to this serious matter.

Sincerely,

Wendy Young

Vice Chair, Refugee Council USA
Director of Government Relations,
Women's Commission for Refugee Women & Children

On behalf of the following organizations: 

Carol Khawly, JD, Legal Advisor
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Washington, DC 

Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel
American Civil Liberties Union, Washington, DC 

Sarah Craft, Policy Analyst
American Friends Service Committee, Washington, DC 

Bill Frelick, Director, Refugee Programs
Amnesty International USA, Washington, DC

Margaret Fung, Executive Director
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, New York, NY

Richard Konda, Executive Director
Asian Law Alliance, San Jose, CA

T. Van Do, Southeast Asian Community Advocate
Immigration Clinic Coordinator
Asian Law Caucus, San Francisco, CA 

Debi Sanders, Executive Director
CAIR Coalition, Washington, DC   

Sushil Narayanan, Staff Attorney
Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services, Archdiocese of Washington
Washington, DC

Cindy Koser, Director, Refugee Assistance Program
Catholic Community Services, Seattle, WA

Donald Kerwin, Executive Director
Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), Washington, DC 

Sister Faith Colligan

Margaret Cafferty Fellow

Catholic Charities USA, Alexandria, VA 

Karen Musalo, Director and Stephen Knight, Coordinating Attorney
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
U. C. Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, CA

Rev. Joe Roberson, Director
Church World Service Immigration & Refugee Program, New York, NY

Jane Guskin
Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI), New York, NY   

Angela K. Plummer, Director/Staff Attorney
Community Refugee & Immigration Services, Columbus, Ohio   

C. Richard Parkins, Director
Episcopal Migration Ministries, New York, NY 

Heid Moll Schoedel, National Director
Exodus World Service, Bloomingdale, IL

Cheryl Little, Executive Director
Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, Miami, FL

Leonard Glickman, President & CEO
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, New York, NY 

Ruth Spivack, Outreach Coordinator
Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Washington, DC   

Patricia McManaman, CEO
Immigrant Rights and Public Interest Legal Center, Honolulu, HI

Lavinia Limón, Executive Director
Immigration & Refugee Services of America/US Committee for Refugees, Washington, DC 

Greg Wangerin, Executive Director
Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, Chicago, IL

Judy Castranova, Diocesan Refugee Coordinator 
Interfaith Refugee Ministry, New Bern, NC   

Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director
Dusty Araujo, Coordinator, Asylum Documentation Program
IGLHRC (International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission), San Francisco, CA

Arnold H. Leibowitz, President
International Refugee Research Institute, Washington, DC 

Robert Carey, Vice President for Resettlement
International Rescue Committee, New York, NY

Rev. Richard Ryscavage SJ, Executive Director
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, Washington, DC 

Kimberly J. Kinser, Esq.
Kinser Law Office, Herndon, VA

Dr. Pary Karadaghi, Executive Director
Kurdish Human Rights Watch, Fairfax, VA 

Philip Hwang, Staff Attorney
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, San Francisco, CA 

Eric Biel, Acting Director
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Washington, DC  

Mary St. John, Supervisor, Case Management Services, Refugee Resettlement
Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas, Raleigh, NC  

Dr. Gove G. Elder, Sponsor Developer
Lutheran Family Services Refugee Resettlement Program of the Carolinas, Raleigh, NC   

Ralston H. Deffenbaugh, Jr. President
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Baltimore, MD 

Robin Phillips, Executive Director
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Minneapolis, MN 

Beth Speich, Case Manager
Minnesota Council of Churches, Refugee Services, Minneapolis, MN 

Mark Franken, Executive Director
Migration and Refugee Services/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC  

Katherine Newell Bierman, Staff Attorney, Immigrant Rights
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, Washington, DC  

Michele Waslin, Senior Immigration Policy Analyst
National Council of La Raza, Washington, DC  

Frank Sharry, Executive Director
National Immigration Forum, Washington, DC

Susan Drake, Executive Director
National Immigration Law Center, Los Angeles, CA 

Sharon Lucas, Interim Executive Director
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Seattle, WA  

Ian Bratlie,  Managing Attorney
Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center, York, PA  

Samantha Morse, Asylum Network Coordinator
Physicians for Human Rights, Boston, MA  

Sarah Ignatius, Executive Director
Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project, Boston, MA

Elenora Giddings Ivory, Director
Presbyterian Church USA, Washington Office, Washington, DC

James P. Delaney, Associate Director
Refugee & Immigration Services, Catholic Family Center, Rochester, NY

KaYing Yang, Executive Director
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Washington, DC

Layli Miller-Muro, Executive, Director
Tahirih Justice Center, Falls Church, VA

Richard Foltin, Legislative Director and Counsel
The American Jewish Committee, Washington, DC

Andrea G. Black, Executive Director
Brooke Hammond, MSW
The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, Florence, AZ

Christopher Owens, Executive Director
Vive, Inc. An Organization for World Refugees, Buffalo, NY

Ann Benson, Directing Attorney
Washington Defender Association's Immigration Project, Seattle, WA

Morton Sklar, Executive Director
World Organization Against Torture USA, Washington, DC

R. Timothy Ziemer, Rear Admiral, USN (ret), Executive Director
World Relief, Baltimore, MD

John R. Welton
Bethesda MD

cc:        

            Lucy Clark, Acting General Counsel, Office of the Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

            Michael J. Garcia, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Immigration & Customs Enforcement

            Victor Cerda, Acting Principal Legal Advisor, Bureau of Immigration & Customs Enforcement

            Molly Groom, Chief Refugee & Asylum Law Division, Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services