Immigration Success Stories USA

The case involved an application for asylum by a Baptist from Russia. While the Judge was unhappy with the credibility of the respondent and other issues having to do with his testimony; found that the respondent suffered no past persecution the Judge, nevertheless, concluded that the respondent managed to convince her that he was indeed a Baptist and that Baptists are routinely subjected to persecution in Russia so the Judge granted asylum based on well founded fear of future persecution.

A respondent in removal proceedings recently retained our firm to handle his application for asylum. The client, a gay man from India, feared persecution were he to return to India, where he had not been for a decade since he came to the United States as a nonimmigrant student. We can happily report that we were able to assist him in winning asylum in the United States.

As a threshold matter, we had to establish that the respondent’s asylum application was timely. He had initially entered the United States as an F-1 student in 2009, and his last entry was as an F-1 student 2011. In 2012, he obtained H-1B status, but his status lapsed when he was laid off from his position one year later. Because the client had hoped to eventually earn lawful permanent resident status based on his employment, he had not applied for asylum. He did however apply for asylum expeditiously – one week – after being laid off from his job. We were able to successfully argue that his failure to apply for asylum within one year of entry was excusable by extraordinary circumstances – specifically that he had lawful status for several years, and he then applied for asylum almost immediately after he lost the job that was the basis of his H-1B status.

Secondly, we had to establish that the client, who had not been subjected to past harm rising to the level of persecution, had a well-founded fear of future persecution. In addition to the fact that he had not been subjected to past persecution, the case was challenging because while the situation for sexual minorities in India is poor, it is not necessarily such that every adjudicator would presume that all sexual minorities in India presumptively have a well-founded fear of future persecution. The client’s personal statement described in detail the particular family and community circumstances that caused him to fear for his life were he to be removed to India. We buttressed his application by providing extensive supporting documentation about country conditions in India, showing that the harm he feared was very real.

After hearing and considering his case, the immigration judge granted the client’s asylum application, not only lifting the specter of serious harm or death that had loomed over him for many years, but also giving him the much-deserved opportunity to build a life for himself in the United States without fear that it could unravel at any moment. It was the privilege of The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal to help him win asylum protection in the United States.

BIA corrected Immigration Judge’s actions and Remanded for proper hearing.

Our firm was retained to represent a client who was seeking to reopen his removal proceedings in order to apply for asylum on the basis of his being a member of the particular social group of male homosexuals in Belarus.

The client (“Respondent”), a native and citizen of Belarus, was last admitted to the United States as a J-1 nonimmigrant in 2001. He obtained counsel and applied for asylum within the one-year filing deadline, but for a variety of reasons he missed his removal hearing. As a result of that failure to appear, the Respondent had been ordered removed in absentia in 2002.

That did not change the fact that the Respondent retained a strong fear of returning to Belarus due to his facing persecution on the basis of his being a member of the particular social group of male homosexuals in Belarus. In 2016, through another attorney, the client sought to have his removal proceedings reopened, arguing that his failure to appear was explained by exceptional circumstances. In that instance, his motion to reopen was denied.

The respondent then sought the services of The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal for an assessment of whether it was feasible to move to reopen removal proceedings on alternative grounds. After carefully examining the facts of his case and the situation in his native Belarus, we filed a motion to reopen on his behalf, arguing that changed country conditions in Belarus materially changed the situation for homosexual men in the country for the worse such that the client should have another opportunity to present his claims for protection from removal.

The Immigration Judge carefully studied our motion and agreed that country conditions in Belarus have changed in such a way that reopening proceedings was necessary to allow the Respondent to present his meritorious case for asylum. The Immigration Judge recognized our careful argument from the outset of her discussion:

[T]he Respondent is not claiming that ‘the fact of continued violent incidents against homosexuals in Belarus is, by itself, a changed country condition.’ [Resp. 2020 Motion] Rather, the Respondent argues that, since 2002, conditions have worsened for homosexuals to such an extent that, if the Respondent were returned to Belarus, he would be at a heightened risk of harm due to his status as a ‘male homosexual.’ [Resp. 2020 Motion]

Indeed, this distinction was critical to making the respondent’s case. The Respondent had been subject to past persecution in Belarus two decades ago, and we believe that he had made a strong claim when he initially petitioned for asylum. However, in order to prevail on the motion to reopen removal proceedings, we had to show more than that conditions in Belarus were bad and remained bad. The Immigration Judge would only grant reopening if the evidence established that conditions in Belarus for sexual minorities had gone from bad to worse since the respondent initially sought asylum nearly twenty years ago. We were confident that we made the case, and the Immigration Judge agreed.

In granting our motion, the Immigration Judge credited many facts that we uncovered and discussed. For example, since 2001-2002, Belarus has changed its laws in ways that specifically target homosexual men, and as a result there has been an increase in official rhetoric and private violence against homosexuals. There are no signs that the situation will improve. For example, new restrictions on the freedom of speech and assembly in Belarus not only stifles those who work to make Belarus a safer and more accepting society, but also make it more likely that the situation for sexual minorities in the country will continue to degrade. Significantly, the voluminous evidence we compiled was not available at the time of the respondent’s initial asylum application – a key requirement to its being material to his motion to reopen.

The motion to reopen is not the end of the case, but rather a new beginning. That the motion was granted does not guarantee that the respondent will win asylum relief, but it was a necessary step as a threshold matter for him to have the opportunity to make his case. In light of the respondent’s past victimization, his honesty, and his upstanding life in the United States, we believe and hope that he will ultimately win relief in the form of asylum, thus ensuring both his safety from future persecution and his bright future here in the United States. It was our firm’s pleasure to successfully assist him in taking the first necessary step toward that future.

This is a successful asylum claim by a Belarus national. It involves interesting issues having to do with the timeliness of the application and the substance of the claim of a Belarus citizen trying to exercise his rights for freedom of speech and assembly. The case is also about brutality of the Belarus government in dealing with peaceful demonstrations.