URGENT

What is happening

Asylum seekers and families living in the US legally are having their applications purged through mass rejection for unjust reasons while they wait for a decision on their case.

For the first time in history, the United States is charging fees to seek asylum, including a yearly fee to continue to be considered when the government keeps them waiting on a decision. This fee has a confusing structure, unreasonably short deadlines to pay, and complicated, shifting rules that are hard to follow. These rules are designed to give the government cover to suddenly deport vulnerable people into danger.

The yearly fee applies to affirmative asylum seekers whose cases have been in the USCIS system for more than a year: These are people who have fled some of the most violent, traumatizing persecution on earth, who have been rebuilding their lives in the United States. They are here legally. Many of them have been living here for years with their families. Rejections resulting from these fees will throw many lives into chaos, with harsh, irreversible, life-altering punishment for things like missing a letter in the mail, not having a bank account, not having the funds to pay, or not understanding instructions given only in English.

The new rules keep asylum seekers on their toes, living in terror of having their entire lives disrupted if they miss something they don't understand. For many, these cruel bureaucratic schemes will result in the sudden loss of their legal status, their permit to work, and the one thing the government has promised them for years: a chance at someday having a place in the world where they are allowed to safely live for good.