Oasis Legal Services Files Federal Lawsuit to Protect the Right to Asylum For LGBTQ+ Immigrants
Today, Oasis Legal Services joined other immigrant rights organizations, Immigration Equality, TransLatin@ Coalition, Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project and Transgender Law Center, to file a federal lawsuit and stop the U.S. government from implementing a 60-page New Rule that would drastically limit the right to asylum for LGBTQ+ immigrants fleeing persecution. The case was filed in the Northern District of California by Lambda Legal, Immigration Equality and the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.
Being LGBTQ+ is illegal in over 70 countries around the world, and de-facto prohibited in the societies of dozens more. LGBTQ+ asylum seekers facing severe forms of homophobic and transphobic violence and death have no choice but to flee. The New Rule would eviscerate current asylum protections by implementing significant new barriers and creating new requirements that clearly go against international norms and congressional intent in creating asylum protections.
As the leading nonprofit provider of LGBTQ+ asylum services on the West Coast, Oasis Legal Services represents hundreds of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers every year, winning 99% of our cases as a result of the severity of the persecution our clients have suffered and our expertise in representing queer and trans immigrants. Under this New Rule, more than 80% of our clients could be barred from protection, facing deportation, torture, or even death in their home countries.
“The new asylum regulation destroys this country’s long-standing commitment to the humanitarian protection of asylum and potentially bars many, if not most, LGBTQ+ asylum seekers fleeing horrific conditions,” says Oasis Legal Services’ Executive Director, Caroline Roberts. “Oasis stands with the LGBTQ+ immigrant community in strongly condemning this rule.”
The New Rule is a cruel attempt by the Trump administration to completely dismantle the asylum system by adding barriers to asylum that almost no one could overcome. The complaint filed today outlines how the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice violated the Constitution, Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) in their attempt to overhaul the entire asylum system through a rushed rule change in the last months of the Trump administration. The New Rule directly contradicts our nation’s asylum laws by creating blanket bars to asylum and removing the discretion and individualized decision-making promised under the INA. In violation of the APA, the government provided an insufficient 30-day comment period to the proposed rule and subsequently did not respond to the thousands of comments it received expressing concern about how the rule will impact the most vulnerable refugees, such as LGBTQ+ and HIV+ individuals. And, finally, the rule violates the Fifth Amendment’s promise of due process and fairness in immigration proceedings.