FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 4, 2016

WASHINGTON, DC– Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on August 2, 2016 appointed Clifford D. May to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

“USCIRF welcomes Cliff May as a strong addition to our Commission and its mission,” said USCIRF Chair, Thomas J. Reese, S.J.  “Given his remarkable depth of knowledge and experience and passionate advocacy for freedom, he will be a great asset to USCIRF and our mandate, helping advance the pivotal right of religious freedom around the world and its integration into our country’s foreign policy.” 

Clifford D. May is the founder and President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. May has had a long and distinguished career in international relations, journalism, communications and politics. A veteran news reporter, foreign correspondent and editor (at The New York Times and other publications), he has covered stories in more than two dozen countries. A former syndicated columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, he is currently the weekly “Foreign Desk” columnist for The Washington Times. His writing also has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, National Review, USA Today, The Atlantic and many other publications. He is the co-editor of a book on the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as one on energy policy. He was appointed as an advisor to the Iraq Study Group (Baker-Hamilton Commission) of the United States Institute of Peace in 2006, and served on the bipartisan Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion from 2007 to 2009. From 1997 to 2001, he served as the Director of Communications for the Republican National Committee. Mr. May holds master’s degrees from both Columbia University’s School of International Affairs and its School of Journalism. His undergraduate degree is from Sarah Lawrence College, and he holds a certificate in Russian language and literature from Leningrad State University, USSR. He is a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs.

Comprised of nine commissioners, USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal body that is principally responsible for reviewing the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and making policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. The President and leadership of both political parties in the Senate and House of Representatives appoint USCIRF Commissioners.

To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.

View this press release in Spanish

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 2, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than ten years after highlighting serious problems with the U.S. government’s treatment of asylum seekers in Expedited Removal, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has found continuing and new concerns. In its newly released report, Barriers to Protection: The Treatment of Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal, USCIRF documents major problems in processing and detention that start the moment asylum seekers enter the United States.

“How we treat people who come to our borders says a lot about who we are as Americans. Those seeking refuge from persecution deserve to be treated with dignity and should not be confined in prison-like conditions simply for seeking freedom and protection in the United States. It is a travesty that in the ten-plus years since USCIRF first documented serious failures in the Expedited Removal process, the United States has failed to address these issues, with dramatic consequences for men, women, and children,” said USCIRF Chair Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

Expedited Removal is a program through which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can summarily return to their countries of origin certain non-citizens who arrive at U.S. ports of entry or cross the border. Barriers to Protection draws attention to the negative impact, especially on children, of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s detention of asylum seekers in institutional settings. Service providers recounted that children in detention experienced depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, developmental regressions, anxiety, and social withdrawal.  Several courts have found that these facilities do not comply with the U.S. government’s own standards for child detention as determined in a 1997 legal settlement, the Flores Agreement. 

The report highlights examples of DHS officials’ flawed processing of asylum seekers.  For example, USCIRF investigators were told about a 4-year-old child’s file that indicated he said he had come to the United States to work.  A Bangladeshi asylum seeker told USCIRF he was turned away at a port of entry and told to seek asylum in Mexico.    Of particular concern is that the very same DHS officials tasked with identifying potential asylum seekers at the border are openly skeptical of asylum claims.   For example, a Border Patrol officer questioned the veracity of Chinese Christians’ asylum claims because they could not name the church they attended; the official did not know that many Chinese Christians worship at home. As the report notes, such skepticism could have negative consequences on case processing.

Barriers to Protection also provides troubling evidence that training and quality assurance measures are inadequate and that some Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers are not following procedures meant to ensure that asylum seekers are not mistakenly returned home. Concerns include failures to ask required questions or properly record answers; the use of interviewing “templates” with standardized, pre-filled responses; files with identical or clearly erroneous answers; and interviewing officers rejecting fear claims or failing to refer asylum seekers to trained asylum officers who are the ones mandated to determine “credible fear.”  USCIRF also found that many asylum seekers do not understand the Expedited Removal process and their rights and responsibilities within it.

The report’s recommendations include that DHS should: appoint a high-ranking official with sufficient authority and resources to carry out the reforms necessary to ensure that asylum seekers are protected in Expedited Removal and oversee the implementation of these reforms; and have the DHS Office of Inspector General audit the Expedited Removal process for compliance with laws and policies on the protection of asylum seekers.

Barriers to Protection follows up on USCIRF’s ground-breaking 2005 Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal, which included many recommendations that DHS has not implemented.   The 2005 Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal was authorized by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. It found inappropriate prison-like detention conditions and serious processing flaws placing asylum seekers at risk of return to countries where they could face persecution.  To address these problems, USCIRF made a series of recommendations designed both to help protect U.S. borders and ensure the fair and humane treatment of bona fide asylum seekers.  

USCIRF Commissioners are available for interviews in English and Spanish.  Please contact [email protected]. 

(USCIRF Chair Thomas J. Reese, S.J. holds up a picture of Raif Badawi at a July 2016 Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on blasphemy laws)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) sadly marks the three-year anniversary of the blasphemy sentence handed down in Saudi Arabia to Raif Badawi, the founder and editor of Free Saudi Liberals, an online forum for diverse views.

 “The Saudi government continues to imprison Raif Badawi for exercising his internationally-guaranteed rights of the freedoms of religion and expression.  Mr. Badawi is a prisoner of conscience who has languished in prison, away from his wife and children, and has been flogged publicly to punish him and intimidate others,” said USCIRF Chair Thomas J. Reese, S.J. “USCIRF calls on the Saudi government to overturn his unjust sentence, release him immediately and unconditionally, and end the prosecution of individuals charged with apostasy and blasphemy. Belief must not be policed.”

Mr. Badawi was arrested in June 2012 on crimes including apostasy and “insulting Islam” and sentenced on July 29, 2013 to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. In May 2014, a Saudi appeals court retried Mr. Badawi’s case, resulting in a harsher sentence, which the Saudi Supreme Court upheld in June 2015: 10 years’ imprisonment, 1,000 lashes, and a fine roughly equivalent to US$266,000.

On January 9, 2015, Badawi received the first set of 50 lashes. Immediately after the flogging was carried out, several governments (including the United States), USCIRF, and numerous international human rights groups and individual advocates condemned the sentence’s implementation. Badawi has not received additional flogging, partly due to international outrage and partly due to a medical doctor’s finding that he could physically not endure more lashings. Nevertheless, Badawi remains in prison, along with his lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, who was sentenced in July 2014 by a newly created anti-terror court to 15 years in jail after being found guilty of various trumped-up charges related to his work as a human rights defender.

USCIRF sent a letter in June 2015 to Saudi King Salman requesting Raif Badawi’s pardon.  USCIRF Chair Reese raised the case of Raif Badawi during a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on blasphemy laws.

The Saudi government continues to use criminal charges of apostasy and blasphemy to suppress discussion and debate and silence dissidents. Promoters of political and human rights reforms and those seeking to debate the role of religion in relation to the state, its laws, and society typically have been the targets of such charges.

USCIRF again recommended in May 2016 that Saudi Arabia be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. The State Department has designated Saudi Arabia as a CPC since 2004. However, since 2006, the Department has put an indefinite waiver on taking any action in consequence of the CPC designation. USCIRF continues to urge the U.S. government to lift the waiver.

To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.