This rule proposes to amend the Department regulations that govern asylum and withholding of removal. The amendments focus on portions of the regulations that deal with cases where an applicant has established past persecution or where the applicant may be able to avoid persecution in his or her home country by relocating to another area of that country. In the current regulation, these portions set out restrictive guidelines about how the Attorney General's discretion should be exercised in cases where past persecution is established and about what kind of relevant evidence can be considered in determining whether an applicant has a well-founded fear of future persecution. This rule is intended to establish new guidelines about these issues. The rule continues to provide that, in cases where the applicant has established past persecution, the Attorney General may deny asylum in the exercise of discretion if it is established by a preponderance of the evidence that the applicant does not face a reasonable possibility of future persecution in the applicant's country of nationality or, if stateless, the applicant's country of last habitual residence. In this regard, however, the rule has been changed to make clear that the asylum officer or immigration judge may rely on any evidence relating to the likelihood of future persecution. The rule makes similar changes to regulations regarding withholding of deportation. The rule also identifies new factors that may be considered in the exercise of discretion in asylum cases where the alien has established past persecution but may not have a well-founded fear of future persecution. The rule further provides that the asylum and withholding standards require a showing that a risk of harm exists throughout the country in question.
Read the full text on the Federal Register
This page is a structured index entry, not a substitute for reading the rule. This is not legal advice.