The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it would be ending the use of an intentionally ridiculous policy implemented by the prior administration that used blank spaces on asylum applications and other forms as an excuse to outright reject paperwork. “[This may seem like a small bureaucratic change, but is actually a big deal,” tweeted Los Angeles Times reporter Molly O’Toole.
Some rejections were for leaving the middle name field empty, even if the applicant had no middle name. It was “[b]ureaucracy as a weapon,” The Guardian reported last year. But as a result of litigation, the previous administration backed down from enforcing the policy on certain documents. Now this week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) confirmed the official end of the “Blank Space” policy.
“In a deviation from long-established agency policy, in fall 2019, USCIS suddenly began rejecting humanitarian benefit applications that left nonmaterial form questions blank,” the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) said in an October 2019 policy brief. “These rejections are particularly egregious as the majority of rejected applications left spaces blank for information that was not relevant to an individual’s eligibility, such as leaving blank the space asking for an individual’s name in a native alphabet when the native alphabet was the same as English.”
“’Middle name’ field left blank because the applicant does not have a middle name? Sorry, your application gets rejected,” The Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote last year. “No apartment number because you live in a house? You’re rejected, too. No address given for your parents because they’re dead? No siblings named because you’re an only child? No work history dates because you’re an 8-year-old kid? All real cases, all rejected.”
Advocates said that the policy further created critical delays for already vulnerable people seeking safety in the U.S. “These rejections occurred without adequate notice and primarily impacted particularly vulnerable populations, such as asylees, crime victims, and individuals who have been subjected to human trafficking,” AILA continued. In fact, “USCIS began by implementing this practice against the most vulnerable populations.”
“The rejection of an application by USCIS does not necessarily mean the client won’t get a chance to fix the application and send it back again,” The Guardian said last year. But it did mean that the process would be delayed, and delaying was yet another tool the previous administration wielded in it attacks on legal immigration. Migration Policy Institute Policy Analyst Sarah Pierce told CNN the policy "increased the chances that an applicant would be dissuaded from applying again altogether."
BuzzFeed News recently reports that USCIS officials are also planning to remove the dehumanizing term “alien” from the agency’s manual. That term had been inserted by former acting Director Ken Cuccinelli, an anti-immigrant loudmouth who was later found by a federal judge to have been unlawfully installed in the position. “Now, officials are looking to replace ‘alien’ with ‘noncitizen’ as much as possible throughout the manual,” the report said. “The move also comes just weeks after agency officials directed leadership to no longer use the terminology in agency communications.”
“This change is designed to encourage more inclusive language in the agency’s outreach efforts, internal documents and in overall communication with stakeholders, partners, and the general public,” acting USCIS Director Tracy Renaud said according to BuzzFeed News.
