Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication and Proposals for Reform
Philip G. Schrag
Through the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States offers the prospect of safety to people who flee to America to escape rape, torture, and even death in their native countries. In order to be granted asylum, however, an applicant must prove to an asylum officer or immigration judge that she has a well-founded fear of persecution in her homeland. The chance of winning asylum should have little if anything to do with the personality of the official to whom a case is randomly assigned, but in a ground-breaking and shocking study, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, and Philip G. Schrag learned that life-or-death asylum decisions are too frequently influenced by random factors relating to the decision makers. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum case is the instant in which a clerk randomly assigns the application to an adjudicator. The system, in its current state, is like a game of chance.
Refugee Roulette is the first analysis of decisions at all four levels of the asylum adjudication process: the Department of Homeland Security, the immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the United States Courts of Appeals. The data reveal tremendous disparities in asylum approval rates, even when different adjudicators in the same office each considered large numbers of applications from nationals of the same country. After providing a thorough empirical analysis, the authors make recommendations for future reform. Original essays by eight scholars and policy makers then discuss the authors’ research and recommendations
Contributors: Bruce Einhorn, Steven Legomsky, Audrey Macklin, M. Margaret McKeown, Allegra McLeod, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Margaret Taylor, and Robert Thomas.
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About Philip G. Schrag
Reviews for Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication and Proposals for Reform
Doris Meissner,Former Commissioner, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, Service and Senior Fellow, Migration Polic "A clarion call for a new humanitarian and transparent system that must be brought into line with our supposed democratic principles, particularly in this era of Obama reform. A must-read for students of immigration law and international human rights."
David Brotherton,Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York "Insiders have long bemoaned the arbitrary and unfair outcomes of the U.S. asylum system. Finally we have a meticulous and compelling study that lays bare the indisputable problems and essential remedies for all to see."
Jacqueline Bhabha,Jeremiah Smith Jnr Lecturer, Harvard Law School, Director, University Committee on Human Rights Studies "This pathbreaking study of the asylum system in the United States, coupled with the comparative commentary, reveals the enormous challenges of making fair decisions about asylum claims when the underlying facts are far away and decisions rest on assessments of credibilityof people who often do not speak the language of the judge. At its core, this work raises the profound question of when a system of decision making qualifies to be called a & court."
Judith Resnik,Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School "The study concerns one & big idea which, importantly, is accessible to both lawyers and laymen without any special jurisprudential or philosophical introduction: the right to have like cases treated alike [The authors] seem to be stones that have rubbed each other smooth. Their prose is beautifully clear throughout."
Modern Law Review
"[T]his is research in the best tradition: it confirms what you largely know already but gives you the ammunition to prove it."
Justice Journal