If you have well-founded fear of returning to your native country, you may want to speak to one of our attorneys to see if you are eligible for asylum status based on your fear. The United States immigration law protects persons who fear unfair prosecution in their home countries because of religion, ethnicity, race, political opinion, nationality, or social membership.
There are two possible ways of procuring asylum status: through a defensive or affirmative process. According to the immigration law, you may apply for asylum status no matter how you came to the country. In other words, your current immigration status doesn’t have any bearing on your ability to apply for asylum.
However, you must meet the following requirements to be eligible:
- You must be living outside your home country or country of nationality. If you don’t have a nationality, you must be living outside of the country where you regularly live.
- You must be facing a scenario where you cannot trust the government of your native country to protect you from potential persecution.
- You must demonstrate that the feared persecution is purely based on your religion, race, social status, political opinion, or nationality.
The good news is that when you apply for asylum status in the US, you may include your spouse and/or children in the formal application. You can also add them to your application anytime before the final decision on the status of your application is made.
But, you can only include your children in the application if they are below 21 years and unmarried. If they are married or above 21 years, they do not qualify to be included in the application.