“This leaves all the applicants in a costly limbo. Their transit visas having expired, some have received $600 fines from the Austrian government, and a few have faced threats of deportation. They receive no government assistance and cannot obtain Austrian work permits. Their U.S.-based families are trapped too, providing thousands of dollars in support.”
Since January we’ve closely watched the plight of about 100 Iranians invited to apply for asylum in the United States under a special U.S. law, then denied U.S. entry. The applicants—mostly Christians—remain trapped in Austria, their once-open door to America shut, and unable to return to Iran, where most have reason to fear they will face imprisonment or even execution.
We now know more about this group, thanks to a team from the Nazarene Fund that read our coverage and decided to help. The team traveled to Vienna last month, meeting with Austrian officials, church leaders, and the asylum-seekers themselves. What they learned only amplifies the needless upheaval and tragedy these Iranians continue to face.
The injustice is reflected in a lawsuit filed last month in federal district court in California on these families’ behalf. It charges officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with failing to follow the law governing their cases, and also sheds light on their plights.
Of about 108 individuals who arrived 18 months ago singly or with their families, two-thirds are Armenian or Assyrian Christians and the rest are Zoroastrians, Mandeans, or others. Most did not know one another, and are a diverse collection of families now living scattered in low-income housing throughout Vienna. Most are working age, but at least one is 8 years old and one is 74, cut off from family now living in America. About 20 need ongoing medical care, for diabetes and other chronic diseases, and aren’t receiving it. The 74-year-old grandmother is going blind due to untreated macular degeneration, and one young man is confined to a wheelchair.
In Iran, a chemical engineer in the group says he was denied work due to his religion. “Fanatical Muslims” attacked a young woman for wearing a cross. A 15-year-old and her family claim she was sexually abused and tortured by an imam in her school for refusing to convert to Islam. One young male applicant is a Muslim convert to Christianity who came to Austria from Iran on foot. The priest who blessed his marriage to an Assyrian Christian, an illegal union in Iran, is now in prison. One applicant, a father of four, has died in Vienna while waiting.
What all these have in common: Their relatives, who are legal permanent U.S. residents or citizens, applied for their asylum under the Lautenberg Amendment, a law granting special processing to specific classes of persecuted religious minorities. President Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration and refugees did not overturn Lautenberg, and Congress has reauthorized the amendment every year, most recently on March 23.
Under Lautenberg provisions, the Austrian government issues transit visas to approved cases at the invitation of the U.S. State Department. In Vienna applicants are processed for U.S. entry—900 in 2016-17. But instead of granting the applicants U.S. visas, DHS denied admission to nearly 90 applicants “as a matter of discretion” early this year and later denied their appeals. About 20 applicants received no word on their status.
In the lawsuit filed April 18, the International Refugee Assistance Project claims DHS violated the law by not disclosing the reason for denial “to the maximum extent feasible,” as required under the Lautenberg Amendment. Without stated reasons, applicants had no way to provide evidence in appealing the denials.
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