GOD HELP YOU IF YOU ARE AN IMMIGRANT IN TRUMP’S WORLD

….These are immigrants that will have to deal with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services

Imaging getting rejected for a visa because you don’t have a middle name

Last fall, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) introduced perhaps its most arbitrary, absurd modification yet, to the US immigration system.  It began rejecting applications unless every single field was filled in, even those that obviously did not pertain to the applicant.

“Middle name” field left blank because the applicant does not have a middle name?  Sorry, your application gets rejected.  No apartment number because you live in a house?  You’re rejected, too.

No address given for your parents because they’re dead?  No siblings named because you’re an only child?  No work history dates because you’re an 8-year-old kid?

All of these real cases, they were all rejected.

A redacted asylum application rejected because some inapplicable fields were left blank.  The applicant filled in the names of his three siblings, but the application has fields for four siblings. USCIS said the form was incomplete because “N/A” was not entered in each box of the row for the nonexistent fourth sibling.

President Trump’s “wall” has been built, not of steel or concrete but of paperwork and red tape. This “no-blanks” policy was just the latest bureaucratic change made without consent from Congress nor the legally required formal rule making process.

Asked how this ridicules processing change serves the public interest, a USCIS spokesperson emailed, “Complete applications are necessary for our adjudicators to preserve the integrity of our immigration system and ensure they are able to confirm identities, as well as an applicant’s immigration and criminal history, to determine the applicant’s eligibility.”

Seems more likely it’s about preventing eligible immigrants from getting a visa.

“It’s death by a thousand paper cuts,” says Cecelia Friedman Levin, senior policy counsel at ASISTA, a nonprofit that represents immigrant survivors of violence.

Yes, even those that got to the US by avoiding being killed are dealt with the same way.

After an initial flood of confusing rejection letters, immigration attorneys wised up.  Their lawyers spent additional hours combing through every field, meticulously typing “N/A” or “none” in all blanks even when doing so seemed almost useless.

In certain fields, it’s not possible to digitally type in the magic words “none” or “N/A,” because USCIS coded the PDF file to only allow numbers.  So, attorneys began handwriting “N/A” across forms. Some scrounged up old typewriters while others special-ordered “N/A” and “NONE” rubber stamps.

All this busywork took up a tremendous amount of time. But at least applicants had learned a way to jump through this hoop.

In late June, new fine print appeared on USCIS website. It said the no-blanks policy would extend to at least one document that must be filled out by law enforcement officials.  That is someone over whom immigrants and their lawyers had no control. These officials must also complete and sign a form certifying that immigrants applying for the “victim-of-a crime” visa are assisting with an investigation or prosecution.  If there isn’t an on-going investigation or prosecution, “Sorry, your rejected.”

Immigration attorneys say that even when they have good relationships with law enforcement, completing these certifications can require months of nudging, cajoling and begging.

Now, if a form doesn’t have all the “NA’s” it needs,  the attorneys must persuade these law enforcement agencies to please, please, please, redo all the forms they already signed, and fill out “N/A” everywhere possible, no matter how stupid it seems.

       

Trump's 'law and order' tendencies are straight out of Nixon's 1960s.

As President Trump has unleashed the military on American the US cities dealing in civil unrest, it's clear that he's embracing his “Inner Nixon”.

“These are officers who have sometimes already gone above and beyond to recertify the case during Covid-19, and now we have to bother them again to ask for these cosmetic changes,” says Safiya Morgan, senior staff attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group.

Separately, in recent months, at least two other attorneys have received denials from USCIS for blanks on other forms filled out by third parties.  In both cases, a medical examination report was required for green card applications. That document is signed by a USCIS-certified physician and submitted to the agency in a sealed envelope. Immigrants are not allowed to even view the completed form to make sure the doctor left nothing blank.

Unlike with the law enforcement certifications, USCIS has not publicly confirmed whether it is systemically applying its no-blanks policy to medical forms, or if those denials were perhaps the action of a rogue official. Alerts on USCIS’s website flag the no-blanks policy only for asylum, crime-victim, and trafficking-victim visas, despite the rejections lawyers have received for blanks on other types of applications. The agency did not respond to questions about how or when it was deciding to enforce the policy.

This Kafka-like processing change isn’t merely vindictive.  It’s a huge waste of resources, for the people filling out the forms and those processing them.  In fact, USCIS is going broke partly because it’s spending so many more person-hours looking for excuses to reject eligible immigrants.

But hey, cruelty and financial mismanagement? That’s just classic “Trump branding”.

Please Americans, send this guy packing and later, perhaps to jail.

Copyright G. Ater 2020