QUESTION
How is the Mayor's Office of Asylum Seeker Operations (OASO) addressing critiques related to the quality and linguistic accessibility of asylum applications?
2:11:59
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3 min
The Mayor's Office of Asylum Seeker Operations (OASO) emphasizes increasing bilingual staff and maintaining quality in the asylum application process despite critiques.
- OASO prioritizes hiring bilingual staff and using Language Line for languages it lacks immediate in-house support for.
- Efforts are made to recruit bilingual staff, particularly for less common languages, to ensure effective communication.
- Quality control includes a stepwise process with multiple checks by immigration attorneys and a final review by the mailroom personnel.
- The office is open to feedback on specific asylum applications to continually improve its services.
- Despite shifting priorities to TPS applications as needed, OASO ensures a quality-driven approach underlies all asylum application processing.
Alexa Avilés
2:11:59
In terms of I 1 of the one of the critiques I've heard of actually a staff at the help center has been that over the progression of time, they saw quality being eroded for quantity.
2:12:16
And we know asylum applications generally take a long time.
2:12:21
The other critique I've heard is that the dependence on language line is deplorable.
2:12:27
And with such a sensitive topics as the topics that are are discussed in that application that it's just a real serious problem.
2:12:41
How do you ensure that quality remains the principal driving motivator as opposed to to quantity?
2:12:51
And how do you respond to to that crit those critiques?
Molly Schaeffer
2:12:57
Think for bringing those up.
2:12:59
Obviously, if there's any specific concerns about certain applications, we're always happy to take feedback because we know how important these applications are.
2:13:10
Yeah.
2:13:11
So we have made it a priority through on call counsel to get bilingual staff and to get bilingual staff in certain languages that are less common.
2:13:23
We do use language line when we don't have someone who speaks that or who we don't have someone who is available at that time, who speaks that language so that we can continue doing the work.
2:13:33
But it is something that we've prioritized is making sure that we can try to get more and more bilingual staff to be able to help and more because we know how important it is to be able to have that conversation with someone who understands your language and especially these conversations.
2:13:47
So a 100% we are aligned there.
2:13:50
You know, some of the languages are harder to get bilingual staff than others, especially it it also depends on who applies, and we, you know, continue to send out that application everywhere.
2:14:01
To the second question about quality, quality is underpinning everything that we do.
2:14:06
We, you know, after TPS was announced, we transitioned a little bit more of our time and energy to TPS, just so we can get it done as quickly as possible and then transition back to asylum.
2:14:18
But we have a stepwise process where you have the asylum application helps send the application assistance
Alexa Avilés
2:14:27
Mhmm.
Molly Schaeffer
2:14:27
Then you have immigration attorneys that look over their work and it's more than 1.
2:14:32
And then you also have the mail room person at the end of the day that does another look.
2:14:36
So we have multiple checks in place.
2:14:39
We have heard back from EOR from DOJ about the quality of our applications.
2:14:47
But again, if you're hearing anything in in particular, we're always happy to look into it.
2:14:53
You know, I Quality is really the underpinning of what we're doing.
Alexa Avilés
2:14:58
No.
2:14:59
Thank you for that.
2:14:59
I I what I was hearing was that the mandate is complete the application in one setting, how a high water.
2:15:06
I don't know what the result of that looks like if if if you're receiving on the back end any any kind of guidance if that's materializing, but a a discomfort or around, ramming through an application in one sitting, which we know in a regular setting would take months.
2:15:26
If not weeks, because the matters are so sensitive and traumatizing, quite frankly.
2:15:32
So I I yeah.
2:15:35
Sounds like you definitely have obviously multiple layers there.
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What resources are available through the Mayor's Office of Asylum Seeker Operations (OASO) for providers, and can providers use the space at help centers?
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Are asylum application processes and language access adequately managed? How effective are follow-up callbacks?