“Offshoring” Asylum: Three U.S. Experiments in the Americas

Abstract

This case study examines the three major offshore programs in the Americas. Starting in the 1980s, the Haitian interdiction strategy was the first effort to divert asylum seekers from the U.S. mainland. In the 1990s the Cuban offshore refugee program built on the Haitian interdiction experience, and coupled it with programs that authorized large and steady streams of family-based migration. Most recently, in 2014, the Central American Minor offshore refugee program began its efforts to carry out refugee status determinations in Latin America, with a guarantee that successful applicants would be resettled in the United States. The asylum screening that accompanied maritime interception took place, by and large, in highly pressured situations under distressing physical conditions. The lack of procedural fairness likely contributed to erroneous and unreliable decisions and, as a consequence, to the refoulement of refugees. The refugee processing centers established in Haiti, Cuba, and Central America, however, were vastly different. Their procedures, similar to those developed in the traditional overseas refugee program, promised more reliable refugee determinations and more resettlement in the United States of individuals who have faced persecution in their homelands.

Keywords: asylum, refugees, migration, human rights, maritime interdiction, shipboard processing, Haiti, Cuba, Central American Minor (CAM) Program