Opinion ID: 111203
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: United States Refugee Law prior to 1968

Text: Legislation enacted by the Congress in 1950, [5] 1952, [6] and 1965 [7] authorized the Attorney General to withhold deportation of an otherwise deportable alien if the alien would be subject to persecution upon deportation. At least before 1968, it was clear that an alien was required to demonstrate a clear probability of persecution or a likelihood of persecution in order to be eligible for withholding of deportation under § 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h) (1964 ed.). E. g., Cheng Kai Fu v. INS, 386 F. 2d 750, 753 (CA2 1967), cert. denied, 390 U. S. 1003 (1968); Lena v. INS, 379 F. 2d 536, 538 (CA7 1967); In re Janus and Janek, 12 I. & N. Dec. 866, 873 (BIA 1968); In re Kojoory, 12 I. & N. Dec. 215, 220 (BIA 1967). With certain exceptions, this relief was available to any alien who was already within the United States, albeit unlawfully and subject to deportation. The relief authorized by § 243(h) was not, however, available to aliens at the border seeking refuge in the United States due to persecution. See generally Leng May Ma v. Barber, 357 U. S. 185 (1958). Since 1947, relief to refugees at our borders has taken the form of an immigration and naturalization policy which granted immigration preferences to `displaced persons,' `refugees,' or persons who fled certain areas of the world because of `persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion.' Although the language through which Congress has implemented this policy since 1947 has changed slightly from time to time, the basic policy has remained constant  to provide a haven for homeless refugees and to fulfill American responsibilities in connection with the International Refugee Organization of the United Nations. Rosenberg v. Yee Chien Woo, 402 U. S. 49, 52 (1971). Most significantly, the Attorney General was authorized under § 203(a)(7) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U. S. C. § 1153(a)(7)(A)(i) (1976 ed.), to permit conditional entry as immigrants for a number of refugees fleeing from a Communist-dominated area or the Middle East because of persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion. See also § 212(d)(5) of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1182(d)(5) (granting Attorney General discretion to parole aliens into the United States temporarily for emergency reasons). An alien seeking admission under § 203(a)(7) was required to establish a good reason to fear persecution. Compare In re Tan, 12 I. & N. Dec. 564, 569-570 (BIA 1967), with In re Ugricic, 14 I. & N. Dec. 384, 385-386 (Dist. Dir. 1972). [8] The United Nations Protocol In 1968 the United States acceded to the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, [1968] 19 U. S. T. 6223, T. I. A. S. No. 6577. The Protocol bound parties to comply with the substantive provisions of Articles 2 through 34 of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 U. N. T. S. 150 (July 28, 1951) [9] with respect to refugees as defined in Article 1.2 of the Protocol. Article 1.2 of the Protocol defines a refugee as an individual who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. Compare 19 U. S. T. 6225 with 19 U. S. T. 6261 (1968). Two of the substantive provisions of the Convention are germane to the issue before us. Article 33.1 of the Convention provides: No Contracting State shall expel or return (`refouler') a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group of political opinion. 19 U. S. T., at 6276. Article 34 provides in pertinent part: The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees. . . . Ibid. [10] The President and the Senate believed that the Protocol was largely consistent with existing law. There are many statements to that effect in the legislative history of the accession to the Protocol. E. g., S. Exec. Rep. No. 14, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1968) (refugees in the United States have long enjoyed the protection and the rights which the protocol calls for); id., at 6, 7 (the United States already meets the standards of the Protocol); see also, id., at 2; S. Exec. K, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., III, VII (1968); 114 Cong. Rec. 29391 (1968) (remarks of Sen. Mansfield); id., at 27757 (remarks of Sen. Proxmire). And it was absolutely clear that the Protocol would not requir[e] the United States to admit new categories or numbers of aliens. S. Exec. Rep. No. 14, supra, at 19. It was also believed that apparent differences between the Protocol and existing statutory law could be reconciled by the Attorney General in administration and did not require any modification of statutory language. See, e. g., S. Exec. K, supra, at VIII. United States Refugee Law: 1968-1980 Five years after the United States' accession to the Protocol, the Board of Immigration Appeals was confronted with the same basic issue confronting us today in the case of In re Dunar, 14 I. & N. Dec. 310 (1973). The deportee argued that he was entitled to withholding of deportation upon a showing of a well-founded fear of persecution, and essentially maintained that a conjectural possibility of persecution would suffice to make the fear well founded. The Board rejected that interpretation of well founded, and stated that a likelihood of persecution was required for the fear to be well founded. Id., at 319. It observed that neither § 243(h) nor Article 33 used the term well-founded fear, and stated: Article 33 speaks in terms of threat to life or freedom on account of any of the five enumerated reasons. Such threats would also constitute subjection to persecution within the purview of section 243(h). The latter has also been construed to encompass economic sanctions sufficiently harsh to constitute a threat to life or freedom, Dunat v. Hurney, 297 F. 2d 744 (3 Cir., 1962); cf. Kovac v. INS, 407 F. 2d 102 (9 Cir., 1969). In our estimation, there is no substantial difference in coverage of section 243(h) and Article 33. We are satisfied that distinctions in terminology can be reconciled on a case-by-case consideration as they arise. Id., at 320. The Board concluded that Article 33 has effected no substantial changes in the application of section 243(h), either by way of burden of proof, coverage, or manner of arriving at decisions, id., at 323, [11] and stated that Dunar had failed to establish the likelihood that he would be persecuted . . . . Even if we apply the nomenclature of Articles 1 and 33, we are satisfied that respondent has failed to show a well-founded fear that his life or freedom will be threatened, id., at 324. Although before In re Dunar, the Board and the courts had consistently used a clear-probability or likelihood standard under § 243(h), after that case the term well-founded fear was employed in some cases. [12] The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which had construed § 243(h) as applying only to cases of clear probability of persecution in a frequently cited case decided before 1968, Lena v. INS, 379 F. 2d 536, 538 (1967), reached the same conclusion in a case decided after the United States' adherence to the Protocol. Kashani v. INS, 547 F. 2d 376 (1977). In that opinion Judge Swygert reasoned that the well founded fear of persecution language could only be satisfied by objective evidence, and that it would in practice converge with the clear probability standard that the Seventh Circuit had previously engrafted onto [§]243(h). Id., at 379. Other Courts of Appeals appeared to reach essentially the same conclusion. See e. g., Fleurinor v. INS, 585 F. 2d 129, 132, 134 (CA5 1978); Pereira-Diaz v. INS, 551 F. 2d 1149, 1154 (CA9 1977); Zamora v. INS, 534 F. 2d 1055, 1058, 1063 (CA2 1976). While the Protocol was the source of some controversy with respect to the standard for § 243(h) claims for withholding of deportation, the United States' accession did not appear to raise any questions concerning the standard to be applied for § 203(a)(7) requests for admission. The good reason to fear persecution language was employed in such cases. See, e. g., In re Ugricic, 14 I. & N. Dec., at 385-386. [13]