A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

was later when the U.S. government established the asylum offices in the
different districts that cases began to be processed. 307
The number of Liberian asylum seekers rose dramatically as a result of the outbreak of war at the
end of 1989. In 1989, the number of Liberians seeking asylum in the United States was 27. By 1990,
that number had jumped to 1,572. Ultimately, more than 6,600 individuals were granted asylum by
the Immigration and Naturalization Service between 1992 and 2007. An additional 1,789 individuals
were granted asylum between 1997 and 2007 by the Executive Office for Immigration Review. 308 Of
the 1,309 Liberian asylum applications decided by Immigration Judges between 1994 and 1999, 44.5
percent were denied. 309
I struggled to get my own immigration status in the United States. When
I applied for asylum, the asylum office lost my application and they could
not locate it. Going through all this by myself, it made me realize that I had
lost my own innocence as a young woman and now had to do things on my
own. 310
It took ten years for my asylum status to be granted, and another five or six
years until I was granted my green card. 311
Liberian asylum seekers, like all asylum seekers in the United States throughout the 1990s, faced a
difficult and lengthy process. By 1994, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency then
responsible for adjudication of asylum cases, had a backlog of more than 425,000 pending asylum
claims. 312 In some cases long processing delays led to changes in circumstances in Liberia or in the
United States that affected pending asylum claims.
I graduated from high school in Staten Island and I have worked in the
USA and paid taxes but I have had difficulty acquiring permanent resident
status. I came to the U.S. with my mother in 1988, but my mother’s asylum
application was not approved until 1996. By that time it was too late for me
to be approved under my mother’s application because I was already 21. I
had to begin my application all over again. 313
Delays in asylum cases often meant prolonged separation from families left behind in Liberia or in
refugee camps in the sub-region. While asylum seekers are permitted to remain in the United States
while their cases are pending, they cannot petition for their immediate families to join them until they
are granted asylum. 314 One statement giver described a common story: “By August 1997, I left Liberia
and came to the United States and applied for political asylum. My family had been living in the Ivory
Coast, but they joined me in the United States after four years.” 315
339
Chapter Thirteen