Trump Administration Pushes Out Top US Asylum Official

The Trump administration has not exhibited any sensitivity toward relief known as asylum, which is available under U.S. law to noncitizens who have fled persecution in their native country.  Here is the latest.

Hamed Aleaziz for Buzzfeed reports that head of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Asylum Division was pushed out this week by the agency’s hardline acting director, Ken Cuccinelli, marking the latest shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration.

The reassignment of John Lafferty, who led the agency’s Asylum Division for six years, has caused consternation and fear among asylum officers and other USCIS officials, who worry that the administration is dead set on pushing forward with policies that may not always be legal or adequately researched. Lafferty will be reassigned to the role of deputy director of a USCIS service center in Virginia.

The story continues:

“`This is just another attack on the asylum system,’ said one USCIS official who was not authorized to speak to the media. “To remove someone with his knowledge of and history with the program will cause damage. The administration views him as just another loophole.”

Nock Miroff of the Washinton Post offers a further explanation for the reassignment:  “[T]he asylum division of USCIS under Lafferty has been a source of frustration to immigration hard-liners in the White House, especially senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller. [The former director of CIS] was pushed out in May, when the White House installed former Virginia attorney general and conservative activist Ken Cuccinelli as acting director.”

KJ