50 MOTHER JONES |^ SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019
in february 2018 , in a small courtroom in
rural Louisiana, an Eritrean man was fight-
ing an impossible battle. The man, whom
I’ll call Abraham—he asked that his real
name not be used—was trying to convince
immigration judge Agnelis Reese that he
should receive asylum in the United States.
He told Reese he had been imprisoned for
12 years in Eritrea for refusing to complete
his military service, and tortured—not only
beaten but sexually assaulted. “What do
you mean?” Reese asked.
Abraham, who did not have a lawyer, told
Reese he was too ashamed to share what
he had been through. She pressed him. “I’m
not trying to force you,” she said, accord-
ing to a transcript of the hearing, “but this
type of harm would be important to your
case.” With his future at stake, Abraham
explained how two Eritrean prison guards
had covered his nose with plastic before
at least one of them put his penis in Abra-
ham’s mouth, at which point he passed out.
“Did they do anything else that was sexual
molestation?” Reese asked.
“They also inserted a stick in my bottom,”
Abraham said. Reluctantly, he recalled
being sodomized at least three times in a
bloodstained room “intended for suffering.”
When Abraham mentioned that he
was a Pentecostal Christian and that his
status as a religious minority had contrib-
uted to his mistreatment in Eritrea, Reese
pounced. During an initial interview with
an American asylum officer, Abraham had
not mentioned being sexually assaulted.“When you lied to the asylum officers or
failed to disclose your sexual abuse,” Reese
asked, “what do you think Jesus thought
about that?”
“I did not lie,” Abraham replied.
Reese rejected his asylum claim on
narrow technical grounds. Abraham had
stated, correctly, that the Eritrean gov-
ernment effectively controls the state
church. Yet, Reese wrote, he did not pro-
duce documentation for this fact. Even if
he somehow had been able to satisfy this
requirement, Abraham probably never had
a chance. Between 2011 and 2018, Reese
denied every single one of the more than
200 asylum claims she heard.
Asylum seekers come to the United
States prepared to tell stories of persecu-
tion, fear, and torture, but their fate often
depends less on their credibility than on
luck. Those who make it across the border
are sent to detention facilities around the
country overseen by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement. Asylum seekers
with relatively good fortune might end
up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where they
have a 44 percent chance of being granted
asylum. For those who are released from
detention and have their cases trans-
ferred to New York City, it’s almost 80percent. The less lucky ones get locked up
in Louisiana, where immigration judges
reject 84 percent of asylum claims. And
the least fortunate find themselves at the
Oakdale Immigration Court before Reese,
America’s harshest asylum judge.
On paper, Reese might seem like someone
who would be sympathetic to the challenges
facing persecuted minorities: She’s a black
woman, a Clinton administration appoin-
tee, a registered Democrat, and a preacher.
But her unforgiving reputation precedes
her. Theodore Tonka, a Cameroonian who
sought asylum in 2017, recalls other Afri-
can asylum seekers telling him to pray he
wouldn’t get Reese. “If this woman is to
hear your case,” he remembers one saying,
“you are going back home.” Tonka started
to believe them when an attorney he hoped
would represent him said she didn’t want to
waste her time with Reese. After the judge
rejected his claim, “I left with the same im-
pression that everyone else had,” Tonka
said. “She’s evil.” Two attorneys I spoke with
compared Reese to the devil; one called her
“Satan incarnate.” (Reese, reached by phone,
declined to comment.)
When deciding asylum cases, immigra-
tion judges are supposed to impartially
weigh the evidence presented by the asylee ALEXNABAUMInside the courtroom
of America’s harshest
asylum judge
BY NOAH LANARDJUDGE
DREAD