Madison Reporter

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On July 27, Representatives Mark Pocan (WI-02), Ritchie Torres (NY-15), House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), and House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Ranking Member Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) led 57 Members in a letter to DHS Secretary Mayorkas and USCIS Director Jaddou expressing concerns about the affirmative asylum application backlog at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and urging them to bolster efforts to address the backlog.

In the letter, Members of Congress state:

“As you are aware, since January 2018, USCIS has been processing asylum applications under a “last in, first out” (LIFO) approach. Except for a three-year period when USCIS briefly switched to a “first in, first out” policy, LIFO has been the approach that USCIS has used to process affirmative asylum applications for more than 25 years. As a result of LIFO, 180,000 applications have been pending for more than five years. This has caused psychological distress, uncertainty and lengthy periods of family separation for people who have no hope of being scheduled for an asylum interview.”

The letter later requests that for each of the 10 asylum offices, DHS and USCIS:

• Commit to designating asylum officers to work “back to front” to address the backlog, giving those asylum seekers moved to the back of the line by the 2018 change to LIFO the opportunity to receive more timely decisions on their cases.  
• Commit to a five-year “cutoff period,” after which time a pending application is moved to the front of the line, ensuring that applicants will not wait decades for an interview.

The letter further requests additional information from DHS and USCIS to better understand the current status of the asylum queue.

Read the full letter here.

Original source can be found here.