Thousands of Chinese Asylees in the US Might Be Deported for Immigration Fraud

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About 13,500 immigrants who were granted asylum status in the United States before December 2012—most of them Chinese—are now facing possible deportation because they may have lied on their asylum applications.

U.S. immigration officials are reviewing about 3,500 asylum cases and 10,000 “derivative asylum status” cases that involve family members of asylees, according to a Sept. 28 report by National Public Radio.

A person who has been granted asylum status can petition the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for their family members to legally stay in the United States with derivative status. This status doesn’t expire, provided that there is no change in the circumstances of the asylee.

The asylum cases are under review because they were handled by people who were convicted during Operation Fiction Writer, a 2012 investigation by federal prosecutors in New York that rounded up 30 immigration lawyers, paralegals, and interpreters suspected of committing immigration fraud. Federal prosecutors said they helped immigrants in Flushing and Manhattan’s Chinatown to obtain asylum status with fabricated stories of persecution in China.

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