The legal basis of Country of Origin Information

🌎 Country conditions or Country of Origin Information (COI) is simply fundamental in many kinds of immigration proceedings - not just asylum.

USCIS states that COI is crucial in adjudicating “applications for asylum or refugee status, requests for review (RFR’s), intercountry adoptions, waivers of inadmissibility and humanitarian parole requests.” (for a great discussion of the laws and court decisions underlying the use of COI see legal scholar Sabrineh Ardalan’s article here https://lnkd.in/eks_Hw-w).
 
When I work on hardship waivers (I-601, I-212, etc.), for example, I spend a lot of time on COI for this reason.
 
In practice, asylum officers (AOs) and immigration judges (IJs) have been known to deviate from the laws and policies governing the use of COI as evidence.
 
❗ That’s why it’s essential to know that when AOs or IJs dismiss your COI or expert affidavit you may have the backing of the law, policy, and court decisions.
 
The Refugee Act of 1️⃣ 9️⃣ 8️⃣ 0️⃣ established (to some extent) a more objective and human-rights based system of decision-making in asylum cases, where expert knowledge and multiple COI sources are admissible as evidence.
 
❌ Still, a major issue is that some AOs still have a “chronic overreliance” on State Department reports and may discount other reports, articles, and even expert affidavits for no good reason.
 
✳ The good news is that federal courts have found this overreliance erroneous, since State Department reports are steered by foreign policy objectives, exhibit bias, are often outdated, and inadequate in their coverage of persecution.
 
❌ A similar dynamic can be seen in immigration courts. IJs aren’t bound by any strict evidentiary standards and should allow for a range of COI evidence. But some judges still choose to apply strict and sometimes incomprehensible standards.
 
✳ Again, the good news is that where judges have excluded evidence or expert testimony for no good reason, circuit courts have concluded that they did so in error. I once stood before a judge as an expert, and despite the DHS lawyer’s attempt to discredit me as an expert, the judge accorded my testimony weight – and it proved to be crucial weight in ruling in favor of the asylum seeker client.  
 
💡 What I’ve found is that putting in the work of doing really good COI research and arguments in asylum and other cases is worth the effort for your clients down the line. If your COI is accurate, comprehensive, and comes from a variety of credible sources, it’s more likely than not that the law will be on your side.