Later, in Los Angeles, a separate case, Mendez v. Reno, challenged the INS officials tasked with holding asylum interviews. They “were not trained and were ignorant of applicable asylum law”; “interpreters were not provided”; and “sessions were rushed with little privacy.” An ancillary aim of the case was to compel government officials to sit down for depositions. Under oath, asylum officials whose job was to execute the terms of the Refugee Act were forced to admit that they couldn’t name any of the legal grounds for asylum.
