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>> 121 7 Perceptions about the Asylum Seekers In chapter 6, we explored asylum adjudication over time, investigating the relationship between grant rates and changes in laws, policies, and politics. In this chapter, we shift our focus to examine variables that may have shaped asylum officers’ perceptions of the asylum seekers. We start by discussing the ways in which two sociological characteristics of the applicants—their dependents and their genders—correlated with grant rates. We then look at two factors relating to the asylum process—status at entry and representation —and their relationships with grant rates. Dependents DHS granted asylum 18 percent more often (52 percent compared to 44 percent ) to asylum seekers who applied with at least one dependent present in the United States than to those who applied without any such dependents. The regression analyses confirm that, even with all other variables held constant , applicants’ dependents correlated with higher grant rates. Why did DHS grant asylum more often to applicants with dependents? In ourbookRefugeeRoulette,weobservedasimilarphenomenoninimmigration courtandspeculatedthatsympathyforspousesandparentsmightplayarole: It could be that asylum seekers who bring children or a spouse appear more credible, or that immigration judges are more sympathetic to asylum seekers who have nuclear family members to protect.1 Sympathies may similarly have affected the judgments of asylum officers, who met the applicants (and sometimes any accompanying family members) and learned their family histories and structures. In addition, in some situations, accompanying family members suffered persecution or observed the persecution of the principal applicant. Family members’ testimony and affidavits sometimes provided corroborating evidence of actual or feared persecution. The asylum officers with whom we spoke corroborated our hypothesis that they had more sympathy for applicants with dependents than for those 122 > 123 individuals and that takes time – time away from the interview. Whenever somebody on my team has a family pack of four, he’s usually starting the interview late or if he’s starting it on time he’s likely to be less prepared.2 In other words, officers who had less time to interview may have been more likely to rely on their instincts and sympathies and may have spent less time rigorously assessing the facts of the case.3 With respect to claimants from Europe and Central Asia, DHS granted asylum to those without dependents at or at about the same rates as those with dependents.4 The greatest grant rate differential concerned those from Latin America/Caribbean, where DHS granted asylum about 55 percent more often to claimants with dependents than to those filing alone.5 As figure 7-1 shows, applicants from certain Central American and Caribbean countries in this region may have contributed particularly to this difference .6 DHS granted asylum 81 percent more often to Guatemalans, 76 percent more often to Salvadorans, and 47 percent more often to Haitians with Fig. 7-1. Grant Rates for Applicants with and without Dependents from Selected Countries 124 > 125 back from the officer is, oh my goodness, if you could have just seen this person, she was so credible, she was crying about this. Another asylum officer suggested that it was supervisors who favored women: Almost all of my managers were women, showing deference to women.9 We broke apart the gender data, investigating whether these female applicants had dependents with them in the United States and whether their religion may have further impacted asylum officers’ perceptions of them. Gender and Dependents The gender grant rate differential disappeared when we looked at applicants withdependents.Femaleandmaleasylumseekerswithdependentshadnearly identical grant rates: 51.6 percent for males and 51.7 percent for women.10 That means that the gender grant rate differential was driven by asylum seekers without dependents. For applicants without dependents, the female grant rate (47.1 percent) was 13 percent higher than the male grant rate (41.7 percent).11 Perhaps men who arrived alone in the United States were more often perceived to be economic migrants than women who arrived alone. In fact, one asylum officer told us that “single men may be seen as possible dangers to society . Females generally don’t belong to the military or join terroristic groups or be involved in violent activity.” That officer also noted that men without dependents were more likely than women without dependents to be perceived as people seeking better economic opportunity rather than fleeing from persecution . “Men are the ones who are more likely to be here to earn money . . . whereas a woman who has left her family behind, maybe there is something there.” Men...

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