Sometimes, a person who does not qualify for asylum can still be granted asylum for humanitarian reasons. In other words, if you do not qualify for asylum due to your political views, nationality, membership in a certain social group, you may still be eligible for asylum on other grounds.
Receiving Asylum in the United States on Humanitarian Grounds
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may grant asylum for the following reasons:
- you fear prosecution (torture) because of your gender;
- you were or may become a sex slave;
- you were forced to perform extremely difficult work; and
- you cannot get medical help in your country due to poverty or similar grounds.
A more clear example when USCIS may grant you asylum is FGM/C – female genital mutilation or cutting – which is still practiced in some modern countries. Similarly, if a refugee was raped, saw his parents killed, or anyhow experienced extremely bad physical pain for a long time, then receiving asylum is possible under the U.S. laws.
At the same time, such a refugee must provide enough evidence that his or her living conditions and physical state were severely compromised. And the refugee should also meet the general eligibility requirements before applying for asylum.
In some cases, USCIS will not remove an applicant back to his or her country even if the conditions in the country changed and no prosecution will be possible. But we must also draw your attention to the fact that receiving humanitarian asylum in the U.S. can be a real challenge. That is, your case must be genuinely exceptional to convince USCIS to grant you asylum.
To sum up, the general recommendation is to consult an immigration lawyer or attorney before applying for humanitarian asylum. An immigration lawyer will find out if your case qualifies for receiving asylum on humanitarian grounds and will help you during the asylum process.