Over the past eight years, thousands of legitimate refugees who pose no threat to the United States have had their applications for asylum, permanent residence, and family reunification denied or delayed due to overly broad provisions of U.S. immigration law that were intended to protect the United States against terrorism. Changes to the immigration laws enacted as part of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of 2005 greatly expanded the immigration law's provisions relating to "terrorism." At the same time, the federal agencies charged with enforcing these laws began to interpret...

As "Living in Limbo" attests, thousands of Iraqi refugees - including Iraqi Christians and other religious and sexual minorities, as well as U.S.-affilitated Iraqis - are living in limbo in the Middle East region, struggling to survive outside of Iraq without the right to work, put their children in school, or get heath care. As violence and instability persist in Iraq, resettlement to other countries - including the United States - remains the only effective path for many of these refugees, including those who have faced persecution in Iraq because of their work with the United States. While...

Detained and Denied in Afghanistan: How to Make U.S. Detention Comply with the Law examines the situation of more than 1700 detainees held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan - more than triple the number held by the Bush administration and around 10 times the number at Guantanamo Bay. It is based on observation of hearings given to detainees by the U.S. military in Sept. 2010 and Feb. 2011; an Afghan trial supported by the U.S. military; and interviews with former detainees, all of whom had been released from U.S. custody within the previous year. This report follows up on Human Rights First's...