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VOA新闻杂志2024--Asylum Seekers’ Court Cases Keep Growing

时间:2024-01-25 06:19:36

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Asylum1 Seekers’ Court Cases Keep Growing

The record number of immigrants entering the United States illegally has resulted in 3 million cases awaiting judgement in immigration courts around the country.

The city of Miami, Florida, is at the center of the immigration wave. There, 261,000 removal proceedings2 are awaiting a hearing.

Just 12 years ago, that number would have covered the whole country, said Austin Kocher. He is a professor at Syracuse University in New York who researches federal immigration detention3.

The Associated Press (AP) reports that Miami has the longest list, or docket, of these cases. The backlog4 includes immigrants who have been in the United States for many years but were arrested on charges not related to their entry into the country.

Most, however, are asylum seekers. They have told border security officials that they fear they will be in danger if they return to their home country.

The AP reports that the number of people being apprehended6 for illegally crossing the southern U.S. border has reached record levels. As a result, the court backlog of cases grew by more than 1 million in the last fiscal7 year.

Information from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearing house says the case backlog is three times larger than it was in 2019.

Judges, lawyers and migrant activists8 say they are worried the system no longer works.

It often takes several years to either grant people asylum or deport9 those who have no right to remain in the country.

The courts are administered by the Department of Justice. The backlogged10 courts have received limited attention.

What happens at the border?

When U.S. officials apprehend5 migrants at the border, a record is made of their detention. Most are then released into the U.S. and are told to appear in court in the city where they are headed. The information is passed from the Department of Homeland Security to the Justice Department, where the Executive Office for Immigration Review operates the courts.

Randy McGrorty is executive director of Catholic Legal Services for the Archdiocese of Miami, which has hundreds of thousands of migrants in its communities. He said, "They're just being released without any idea of what comes next."

Many immigrants come to the Catholic Legal Services for advice. It is now teaching them how to represent themselves before judges.

Miguel Mora is a Catholic Legal Services lawyer in Miami. He said, "We help them understand what judges want, and we help judges..."

When immigrants go to court

Aaron Rodriguez and Cindy Baneza are in their 20s. They recently appeared in an immigration court in Miami with three children. They are not married.

They communicated with the judge with the help of an interpreter. It had been eight months since they crossed the Rio Grande River and entered the U.S. illegally. They asked the judge to give them more time to find a lawyer so they could file an asylum claim.

Rodriguez, who is 23, told Judge Christina Martyak that he had no money for a lawyer. He had already received an extension for not having a lawyer.

Rodriguez and Baneza said they fled Honduras after a gang threatened them. The violent group had killed the father of Baneza's oldest child. The gang threatened them with more violence unless they paid them money they earned from their tortilla business.

Rodriguez told the AP: "We were left with no other option than get out of the country."

Judge Martyak agreed to give Rodriguez and Baneza an additional three months. She told them to seek free legal assistance from the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami.

The backlog keeps growing

Time does not reduce the backlog, however. Government records show that judges completed far more cases in the last year than ever before. But their dockets keep growing.

Mimi Tsankov is president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Tsankov said the average number of cases per judge is now 5,000. She said if the number of judges doubled to about 1,400, the current backlog would be solved by 2032.

In the latest budget request, the Executive Office for Immigration Review said it is requesting that Congress provide money for 150 new judges and support workers, the AP reports.

Paul Schmidt is a retired11 immigration government lawyer. He was working when the last major system reform took place nearly 40 years ago. He said the system can only be fixed12 with major policy changes. One example of such a change would be to permit most asylum cases to be solved through an administrative13 process instead of through a court of law.

Words in This Story

proceedings –n.(pl.) the process of appearing before a court of law in a legal case

backlog –n. the number of tasks that are waiting to be finished

apprehend –v. to be caught or to be arrested

fiscal year –n. a 12-month period for financial purposes

grant –v. to give legal permission for something in an official way

deport –v. to be removed from a country by a legal process

file –v. to submit documents to meet legal or financial requirements; to put paperwork in organized storage


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1 asylum DobyD     
n.避难所,庇护所,避难
参考例句:
  • The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
  • Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。
2 proceedings Wk2zvX     
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报
参考例句:
  • He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
  • to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼
3 detention 1vhxk     
n.滞留,停留;拘留,扣留;(教育)留下
参考例句:
  • He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
  • He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。
4 backlog bPiyc     
n.积压未办之事
参考例句:
  • It will take a month to clear the backlog of work.要花一个月的时间才能清理完积压的工作。
  • Investment is needed to reduce the backlog of repairs.需要投资来減轻积压的维修工作。
5 apprehend zvqzq     
vt.理解,领悟,逮捕,拘捕,忧虑
参考例句:
  • I apprehend no worsening of the situation.我不担心局势会恶化。
  • Police have not apprehended her killer.警察还未抓获谋杀她的凶手。
6 apprehended a58714d8af72af24c9ef953885c38a66     
逮捕,拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 ); 理解
参考例句:
  • She apprehended the complicated law very quickly. 她很快理解了复杂的法律。
  • The police apprehended the criminal. 警察逮捕了罪犯。
7 fiscal agbzf     
adj.财政的,会计的,国库的,国库岁入的
参考例句:
  • The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
  • The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。
8 activists 90fd83cc3f53a40df93866d9c91bcca4     
n.(政治活动的)积极分子,活动家( activist的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
  • Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》
9 deport aw2x6     
vt.驱逐出境
参考例句:
  • We deport aliens who slip across our borders.我们把偷渡入境的外国人驱逐出境。
  • More than 240 England football fans are being deported from Italy following riots last night.昨晚的骚乱发生后有240多名英格兰球迷被驱逐出意大利。
10 backlogged 28412116fe1450856da02bb6f8877b79     
(使)积压( backlog的过去式和过去分词 ); 储存; (为日后装运而)登账确认(订货)
参考例句:
11 retired Njhzyv     
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的
参考例句:
  • The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
  • Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。
12 fixed JsKzzj     
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的
参考例句:
  • Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗?
  • Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定,我们就不应该随意改变。
13 administrative fzDzkc     
adj.行政的,管理的
参考例句:
  • The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
  • He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

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