Bureaucracy as a weapon: how the Trump administration is slowing asylum cases
US Citizenship and Immigration Services is returning applications over the equivalent of failing to dot an I or cross a T
One man came to America fleeing political persecution in Cuba, only to have his application for asylum rejected because his attorney had not listed a middle name – a middle name he does not have.
Another asylum-seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo had their application rejected, in part, for putting a dash (“–”) in the space to list other names they have gone by – even though they have never gone by any other name.