The Scandal of Refugee Family Reunification

INTRODUCTIONEsther, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was forcibly separated from five of her children during civil conflict in the early 2000s.1 She spent several years in a refugee camp and was eventually resettled to North Carolina without her children. Upon arrival in the United States, she petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS") to bring her children here. USCIS required that Esther provide birth certificates to prove her relationship to her children, all minors, but these documents did not exist. Incurring months of extra delay, Esther contacted relatives in the Congo who procured retroactive documentation of the relationship.USCIS then approved the petition and transferred the file to the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa, Congo's capital. In order to continue processing, the children had to travel to Kinshasa for visa interviews. But the children lived on the other side of the country, hundreds of miles away, and the journey to Kinshasa was extremely dangerous. Esther had no choice, however, and raised money from her church to fly them to the capital in a small plane.The children, however, had never been to Kinshasa before, and could not find a stable place to stay. They had no parent or guardian with them. On the day of their interview, they were turned away from the embassy because they lacked the requisite paperwork, which was in the United States with Esther. Rescheduling the interview took months. During this time, the youngest child, Florence, went missing. She is presumed kidnapped or dead, and did not accompany her siblings to the United States to be reunited with their mother.When the remaining four children received a new interview, they were unaccompanied by adults, attorneys, or translators (the oldest child was sixteen). Despite this, and against all odds, their visas were approved-nearly two years after Esther filed the original petition. At last, they were granted permission to travel to the United States to be reunited to their mother. It was, understandably, a bittersweet reunion: to this day, no one knows what happened to Florence, a child in pursuit of a visa.2Each year, the United States resettles tens of thousands of refugees from all over the world.3 Many of these refugees arrive, like Esther, without intact family units due to dangerous circumstances in their home countries.4 Upon arrival, they may petition the U.S. government to immigrate their spouses and children through the federal immigration bureaucracy.5Although in place, this system poses significant challenges to refugees, many of whom lack formal education and the documentation needed to success - fully navigate the process and be reunified with their loved ones.6 Like Esther, many refugees face similar delays, frustrations, and bureaucratic hurdles when immigrating their family members.7 Rather than providing refugees with extra support and protection, the system often penalizes them for their vulnerability and lack of resources.8 This exacerbates refugees' suffering and keeps many families apart.9This Note argues that these administrative hurdles make it too hard to reunite refugee families, and that simple changes can be made to streamline the process and fix a broken system.10 Part I discusses the refugee family reunification system and lays out the process refugees must comply with to immigrate their relatives.11 Part II identifies the flaws within the system, including the adjudication of family petitions and the consular process at U.S. Embassies abroad.12 Finally, Part III offers solutions to these problems by advocating reform at different stages of the family reunification process.13I. REUNITING LOST FAMILIES: UNDERSTANDING THE REFUGEE FAMILY REUNIFICATION SYSTEMSome refugees are lucky to arrive in the United States with their families intact.14 For others, their arrival on American soil is just the beginning of their journey to reunite with loved ones. …