Eliminate the Arbitrary One-Year Bar to Asylum

Human Rights First, along with 86 other faith-based, human rights, legal services and refugee assistance organizations and 81 individual asylum law practitioners, pro bono attorneys, law professors and other experts, sent a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives urging them to support H.R. 4800, the Restoring Protection to Victims of Persecution Act, eliminating the one-year deadline for filing asylum applications. The one year deadline is a technical requirement that has led to the denial, rejection, or delay of thousands of requests for asylum protection in the United States and created unnecessary inefficiencies in the asylum adjudication process. Read the letter (PDF) Read HRF’s press release and our recommendations (PDF). Read the Restoring Protection to Victims of Persecution Act (PDF).