The \u201cpersecutor bar\u201d prevents immigration benefits from being granted to applicants who persecuted others in the past.\u00a0 Today, the immigration appellate court (BIA) confirmed just how far the government must go to invoke the bar.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0Matter of M-B-C-<\/em>, 27 I&N Dec. 31 (BIA 2017), Interim Decision #3892, the applicant was a commander in a Bosnian military unit, the VRS, during the Balkan conflict in the early 1990\u2019s. \u00a0\u00a0M-B-C- argued that the government had to prove that he had personally harmed others, or that he knew the VRS was engaging in persecution.\u00a0 The government made a rare move to produce an expert witness, who analyzed the evidence in the context of that conflict.<\/p>\n Based on the expert\u2019s information, the government showed that M-B-C- had served in the VRS, in a location where VRS soldiers engaged in ethnic massacres, and during the time of the massacres.\u00a0 The government did not have to prove that M-B-C- had personal knowledge or involvement in the massacres.<\/p>\n The BIA confirmed that the government\u2019s evidence only needs to \u201cindicate\u201d that a person \u201cmay be\u201d a persecutor of others.\u00a0 \u00a0Once the Judge made this determination, then it was M-B-C-\u2018s burden to convince the Judge that he was innocent.<\/p>\n The persecutor bar stops undeserving people from getting green cards and citizenship in the U.S.\u00a0 Any participation during a war or conflict must be carefully examined at all stages of an immigration case, even if it did not cause problems before.\u00a0 The US government can raise this issue at any time during your case\u2014even after you become a citizen, if you made a material misrepresentation about your past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u201cpersecutor bar\u201d prevents immigration benefits from being granted to applicants who persecuted others in the past.\u00a0 Today, the immigration appellate court (BIA) confirmed just how far the government must go to invoke the bar. In\u00a0Matter of M-B-C-, 27 I&N Dec. 31 (BIA 2017), Interim Decision #3892, the applicant was a commander in a Bosnian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asylum-withholding-convention-against-torture","category-legal-analysis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n