FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2006

Contact:
Angela Stephens, Assistant Communications Director,
(202) 523-3240, ext. 14

WASHINGTON-New measures were announced this month by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales based on U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommendations to protect legitimate asylum seekers. The Commission, an independent, bipartisan federal agency, welcomes them. The changes are designed to improve the performance of the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals and protect those who may face persecution if returned to their countries of origin.

"The Commission is pleased that our findings and recommendations regarding unfair, often summary immigration court proceedings are at last being addressed by these reforms," said USCIRF Chair Felice D. Gaer. "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should now follow the lead of the Justice Department and enact reforms based on the Commission's findings and recommendations to bring an end to jail-like detention for legitimate asylum seekers by DHS."

On February 8, 2005, the Commission released its two-volume, 500-page Congressionally authorized study, Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal. The study examined how the process of expedited removal-through which immigration officials can summarily return people arriving in the United States without proper documentation to their country of origin-has been implemented and whether legitimate asylum seekers were being treated fairly. The study found that there were serious and systematic problems in implementation of expedited removal procedures by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security that undermined the asylum system. Included among the recommendations contained in the Commission's study were that DHS and the Department of Justice should expand existing public-private partnerships to facilitate legal assistance for asylum seekers subject to expedited removal, and that they should improve administrative review and quality assurance procedures to improve consistency in asylum determinations by immigration judges.

The Justice Department's long-awaited reforms include:

• Implementation of performance and supervision measures to promote better consistency and quality of decisions by immigration judges.
• Some adjustments to recent "streamlining" reforms by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to begin to improve and better explain its reasoning in decisions, to ensure that the BIA will be more effective in promoting better decisions by immigration judges.
• Strengthening of training for immigration judges, Board of Immigration Appeals members and staff of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
• Directing the head of EOIR to consider forming a committee to oversee expansion and improvement of EOIR's pro bono programs.

Other changes include performance evaluation of immigration judges and Board of Immigration Appeals members by EOIR leadership, implementation of mechanisms to detect poor conduct and quality of immigration judges' and Board members' work, and a review of the selection process for interpreters who translate proceedings for asylum seekers.

"The Justice Department's reforms are necessary and welcome steps toward ensuring that individuals who come to these shores and who are escaping the threat of persecution in their countries of origin find real the unique promise and values of this country, which include a well-functioning legal system and a society committed to the rule of law," said Preeta D. Bansal, a Commissioner who served as Commission Chair when the Commission's expedited removal study was issued in 2005.

As part of its 2005 study, the Commission made the following additional recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):

• DHS should establish detention standards that are more appropriate for asylum seekers than the current jail-like conditions under which most asylum seekers are currently detained;
• DHS should promulgate regulations to promote more consistent implementation of established release criteria to ensure that asylum seekers with a credible fear of persecution - and who pose neither a flight nor a security risk - may qualify for release from detention;
• Asylum officers at ports of entry should - in clearly approvable cases - be authorized to grant asylum applications during the expedited removal process, rather than waiting for months for a hearing before an immigration judge, just as asylum officers who are not stationed at ports of entry are authorized to do with regard to affirmative asylum applications; and
• DHS should implement and monitor quality assurance procedures - such as videotaping secondary inspections at ports of entry - to ensure more reliable information for homeland security purposes, and to ensure that legitimate asylum seekers are not turned away in error.

"These additional modest but crucial changes in DHS regulation and procedure are critical for ensuring that the expedited removal system accords with the statutory aim of protecting all legitimate asylum seekers from deportation," said Mark Hetfield, an immigration expert and lawyer who directed USCIRF's study.

The Commission's study is available on its web site at www.uscirf.gov.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2006

Contact:
Angela Stephens, Assistant Communications Director,
(202) 523-3240, ext. 14

WASHINGTON- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan, independent federal agency, condemns the arrests of prominent Chinese lawyers and human rights activists Gao Zhisheng in Beijing and Xu Zhiyong in eastern Shandong province. Xu was preparing to defend Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist who has campaigned against China's harsh population control measures. Gao, whose law firm has been closed because he refused to curtail his defense of persons unjustly accused, including for religious practice, has demanded the release of Chen. Chen was charged with disrupting traffic and destroying property in Shandong during a protest in February. Xu's arrest deprived Chen of his legal defense during the trial Friday. Xu was released Friday after Chen's trial ended. No verdict was announced.

"The arrests of Mr. Gao and Mr. Xu appear to be an attempt to intimidate and silence those who are using legal means to defend human rights protections in China, and to deny legal representation to a citizen whose views or actions are unacceptable to the Chinese government," said Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer. "Such actions against these prominent courageous attorneys are disgraceful. China should be encouraging more use of legal means, not chilling its use."

The Commission has previously documented that the government ordered Gao's law firm closed in November 2005 for one year because he refused to curtail his defense of Falun Gong practitioners and Cai Zhouhua, a Protestant pastor who was ultimately sentenced to three years in prison for distributing Bibles. Gao has written an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao condemning methods used by the Chinese government in implementing its ban on what it calls "evil cults," such as Falun Gong.

In April, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution urging the government of China to reinstate all licenses of Gao Zhisheng and his law firm and revise law and practice in China so that it conforms to international standards. Chinese law allows a lawyer to represent a criminal suspect, but defendants in politically sensitive cases frequently find it difficult to secure an attorney's services.

The State Department has annually designated China a "country of particular concern" for its ongoing and egregious abuses of religious freedom, based on the recommendations of USCIRF since 1999, when the Commission first issued such recommendations.

The Commission, which traveled to China in August 2005 to examine the status of religious freedom and human rights in the country, reiterates its recommendation that the U.S. government call on the Chinese government to end its crackdown on religious and spiritual groups, including harassment, surveillance, and detention of persons on account of their manifestation of religion or belief, and halt the coercion of individuals to renounce or condemn any religion or belief.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.

Felice D. Gaer,Chair

• Michael Cromartie,Vice ChairElizabeth H. Prodromou, Vice ChairNina Shea,Vice ChairPreeta D. BansalArchbishop Charles J. ChaputKhaled Abou El FadlRichard D. LandBishop Ricardo RamirezAmbassador John V. Hanford III,Ex-OfficioJoseph R. Crapa,Executive Director

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2006

Contact:
Angela Stephens, Assistant Communications Director,
(202) 523-3240, ext. 14

WASHINGTON-The U.S. Commission on International Religion Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan federal agency, discussed the need for a U.S. special envoy on Sudan (including Darfur) during a meeting this week in Washington with Sudanese First Vice President and President of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir Mayardit. The Commission recommends that the difficult task of achieving a genuine, comprehensive and permanent peace requires the prompt appointment of an envoy with wholehearted Administration support.

Following the meeting, USCIRF Vice Chair Michael Cromartie said, "The North-South peace achieved in Sudan through so much effort is at risk. The difficult task of sustaining the peace requires prompt appointment of a full-time envoy who commands wholehearted Administration support. This envoy's sole responsibility should be to coordinate U.S. efforts toward the complete implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and of the Darfur Peace Agreement so that a just and lasting peace can be secured for all of Sudan, including Darfur. This idea is based on a successful precedent, also recommended by the Commission: President Bush's appointment in 2001 of former Senator John Danforth as Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan."

The Commission visited Sudan in January 2006 to assess the state of religious freedom and the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a two-decades-long civil war between the North and South. The Commission found that there have been significant delays and shortcomings in the CPA's implementation, raising questions regarding the sincerity of the commitment of the National Congress Party in the Government of National Unity. Moreover, the religious freedom and other human rights protections agreed to in the CPA and enshrined in Sudan's Interim National Constitution have yet to result in significant changes in practice in government-controlled areas of the North.

In March, the Commission was joined by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), and Congressman Donald M. Payne (D-NJ) on Capitol Hill for the release of the Commission'sPolicy Focus on Sudan, which includes recommendations for U.S. policy as a result of the findings from the Commission's visit. At that event, Congressman Wolf and House Minority Leader Pelosi called for a special envoy to be appointed to coordinate U.S. efforts on achieving implementation of the CPA and ending atrocities in the western Darfur region. The proposal for a special envoy, supported by the Commission, also gained the support of at least 119 members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans.

The Commission's latest recommendations on Sudan can be found in its 2006 Annual Report.

Read the Commission publication Policy Focus on Sudan.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.