comments of a former asylum officer: March 2018

A former asylum officer published some comments on ILW.com recently:
Officers are busy: they have lots of cases and lots of administrative tasks, such as doing background checks.
"the officer may spend only 20 minutes reviewing your file before calling you in for the interview."
So, do not give extra info that the officer does not care about.
-keep your personal statement to less than 5 pages
     State up front what harm you suffered, and why you suffered it
What harm did you suffer?
was your personal statement translated back to y ou, word-for-word in your native language?
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Asylum officers already know about the conditions of most countries.
What does the Department of State say about your country?
    highlight excerpts you want the officer to focus on
I-589
  did you ever use any other names?  Put this in the application:
page 1, question 7: "What other names have you used?"
The officer will do a background check on the names you give. If you add a new name at the interview, this will slow your case down: the officer must do another check
-make the I-589 perfect! any errors in it will slow the interview down. You want to talk about the harm you suffered, not the address of where you lived 36 months ago.
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officers know the law! they get weekly training. They are urged to consult the Asylum Office Training Manual
-officers have time contraints! they may not read a legal brief
-be concise as possible. a succinct cover letter may suffice, rather than a lengthy brief
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Study your personal statement before the interview. If you are inconsistent, the officer will spend time on that.
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letters of corroboration are not that important. Officers do not have much time to read them; they may contain fraud; they are not so useful.
Did you suffer harm? can you repeat your story, consistently?

"Less is more," Judge Crosland told me, once.