I heard through a mutual friend that Bob, an old friend of mine got caught with 20 grams of coke in Wisconsin and apparently he’s filed for asylum in Switzerland.
Is this something that has ever worked or is he doomed to denial? I don’t know how legitimate all of this is but it sounds too strange to be made up. I am curious and flabbergasted.
The Swiss Refugee Council says this on its website:
Switzerland grants protection and residence to people who are exposed to serious persecution in their country of origin due to their ethical affiliation, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, or who are unable to return for other humanitarian reasons.
Somehow I doubt that they would accept being caught with 20 grams of coke qualifies as serious persecution.
IIRC, was it Switzerland where they will not extradite their citizens? (Which is why Roman Polanski went there)
But Bob has it right - asylum and refugee status anywhere is based on the government accepting that the person is at risk of persecution in the country they fled. Generally, fleeing prosecution for a crime is not an acceptable reason, unless the person can persuade the government that the charges are fabricated as a means of persecution. Which is usually what an extradition hearing is about - present evidence to the sheltering country that in fact there is enough evidence of the crime - a crime also recognized by the sheltering country - to justify the charge. (Some countries, like Canada, do not accept the death penalty and will refuse to extradite even an obvious criminal without some guarantee they will not face the death penalty.)
If there’s no extradition request, then a foreign national (going by the process in the USA and Canada) makes an application for asylum. Otherwise, they have no right to be in the country beyond a tourist stay. Usually the application is heard by a tribunal or court to determine if the risk of persecution back home justifies refugee status. The problem is, these tribunals or courts are often backed up to the point where the hearing could take months or years, especially if a whole caravan arrive at once and make the same claim.
Then there’s the problem of asylum shopping. The rule in the treaty on refugees, as I understand it, is that once you have reached a safe country, you make your claim of asylum. You do not get to then hop from country to country, trying to find a better place. This is the disagreement with the Mexican border - are the people from Guatemala or El Salvador safe once they reach Mexico, or is Mexico so unsafe they need to pas through it and make a claim in the USA? A large number of the Haitians sent back home recently were apparently living already in places like Chile for years accepted as refugees, and simply decided to try for the USA. “Refugee” status doesn’t work like that.
Minor nitpick: Polanski holds Polish and French, but not Swiss citizenship; he was in Switzerland to accept an award there. And a rule that a country won’t extradite its own citizens (or even more broadly, see below) exists in many countries of the continental European tradition, although I understand it’s not widespread in the common law world. Keep in mind that “continental European tradition” in terms of legal systems can include many non-European countries, e.g. in Latin America; Ronald Biggs, member of the British gang that committed the famous 1963 train robbery, went to Rio de Janeiro and was safe there because he was parent to a Brazilian citizen (he had a son with his girlfriend there), which under Brazilian law protected him from extradition.
I would say no, because Switzerland is also not fond of drug dealers. This in contrast to Marc Rich, who benefited from the difference in Swiss law:
But the question of interest here is why Switzerland offered Marc Rich a safe haven during his years as a refugee from the law. I see four major factors. Perhaps most importantly, Switzerland makes a distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud. Only tax fraud is considered a felony, while tax evasion, no matter the amount and degree of criminal intent, remains a minor civil offense not unlike a parking ticket.
Well, it can’t hurt to ask.
But unless maybe he’s a Swiss citizen, it seems unlikely to work. I guess even then, he’d just be moving to a place where he already had a right to live to avoid extradition, which isn’t quite the same as being granted “asylum”.
Tangent: If you are a citizen of some EU country that is willing to extradite you to Pottsylvania, can you just move to some other EU country and get the benefit of their less accommodating extradition statutes? I’m guessing not?
Sure you can; the Member State of your nationality has no jurisdiction on the territory of the State where you now reside, so if that State won’t extradite you, you’re safe. What might happen is that the Member State of your nationality issues a European arrest warrant that would have to be honoured and executed by other Member States by arresting you and extraditing you to the Member State that issued it; but I’m not sure this would happen if the Member State of your nationality did it solely for the purpose of extraditing you to a third country, rather than for prosecution domestically.
The only thing Bob could argue is that the law he broke is unfair because it assumes 20g makes him a dealer instead of a user (I don’t think he’s a dealer, just someone who buys in bulk to save).
Apparently, small amounts of cocaine possession is decriminalized in Switzerland.I don’t know what the weight cutoff is and apparently neither does the internet.
Bob’s definitely not a Swiss dual-citizen. He’s american through and through.
So far, consensus is that he is crazy to attempt this and his chances are nil. Which mirrors what I thought when I first heard it.
The “gotcha” is that for extradition, a crime has to also be a crime in the country where the fugitive is holed up. Most countries, for example, wouldn’t honor extradition for crime of sedition for insulting the dear leader.
So that may be the result. Or, the USA could not be bothered to go through the whole extradition process for such a minor crime - assuming he’s just some Joe who recently bought a stash, not a member of a cartel. The downside is of course that he then has to be very careful where he goes, in case he ends up somewhere that is willing to extradite based on a standing warrant(?).
In Canada, for example, all serious crime is federal but enforcement is provincial. So, there is no need to extradite between provinces. There was a problem, however, that some provinces used this as a “don’t come back” technique. People in Toronto facing trial for minor crimes such as drugs or burglary were often released on their own recognizance. Some would skip out on their bail and leave the province, usually ending up in British Columbia, the alternative drug haven. When inevitably they came to the attention of the local police, Ontario would be notified that someone with an outstanding warrant had been picked up. Ontario started telling BC “thanks, but you can keep him.” It saved them the cost of flying two policemen to BC and back to pick the guy up. Effectively it was “get outta Dodge”, a way to say “don’t come back to Ontario or you’ll be arrested and held without bail until trial.” Also saved Ontario the cost of a trial and jail.
Eventually BC got annoyed and started picking up the cost to dump the troublemakers back where they came from.
Treason is a crime just about everywhere, I suspect, and it would be the rare oppressive regime indeed that couldn’t figure out how to trump up some kind of charge that’d make the target look really bad for immigration purposes. When it comes to showing up at a country and claiming asylum, a claimant will be evaluated against a particular set of criteria and will either make it or they won’t. I strongly suspect that, unless there is some really important information missing here, the OP’s friend will not meet the criteria for refugee status, and by extension asylum, anywhere.
But that is distinct from the question of whether they might be extradited to the US.
Which is also distinct from the question of whether Switzerland or whatever other country will deport a non-citizen/non-resident after they have overstayed their visa (or otherwise exceeded the allowed time limit for the provision of law they were admitted under), assuming they were allowed in in the first place.
Depends. Insulting the dear leader, for example, probably would not rise to the definition of treason for Switzerland. Whereas, making up a coup attempt or assassination plot would rely on evidence that would be subject to independent scrutiny in the asylum country. Usually a country that resorts to this level of character assassination already has a reputation that would automatically make such claims suspect. Plus, most western countries will not send someone to where they may be subject to torture, and the civil rights behaviour of many countries are already a matter of record.
Sure. There are lots of opportunities for nuance, but now you’re going beyond the scope of this thread, which is not some hypothetical “under what circumstances could someone claim asylum in Switzerland?” but a more concrete question of whether a drug offender, fleeing prosecution in the US, might claim asylum in Switzerland. Someone who’s only basis for claiming asylum is that they are a drug offender and fear punishment under the law seems unlikely to even meet the threshold criteria that they must have experienced or fear persecution based on certain characteristics (nationality, religion, race, political opinion, being a member of some other “particular social group,” etc.). *“Drug offenders” are not likely to be considered a “particular social group” as generally understood by the UN and other states. Nor would someone claiming “It is my political opinion that cocaine should be legalized and I am being persecuted for it” succeed on that basis when it’s that their mere opinion that they are being charged with a crime for, but rather for actually possessing illegal drugs.
Now they might, as you suggest, try to claim they fear torture and should not be returned on account of that, and that might actually be true of drug offenders at risk of being returned to certain countries. But, again, we’re not dealing with a hypothetical here: I very much doubt, as bad as prison conditions in the US may be, that it would rise to the level of torture to face the prospect of incarceration in one of our prisons. If it did, then whoever takes in a drug offender from the US on those grounds (that it would be inhumane and contrary to obligations under the Convention Against Torture to return them to face incarceration in the US) is announcing that it would take in any person who fears incarceration in the US: literally every criminal in the US could seek protection from Switzerland if Switzerland finds that incarceration in a US prison amounts to torture. Good luck with that (Switzerland).
*ETA: I mean, I suppose there could be a caveat that if drug offenders were, even after conviction and completion of their sentences, set apart from the rest of society and then persecuted by the rest of society solely on the basis of their past conviction, and unique from other criminal offenders, then maybe you could claim that they are a “particular social group.” But, again, you have to be careful not to see the mere possibility of such a state of affairs arising in the hypothetical, or even the extent to which it may exist in miniature already (such as with there already being a stigma attached to criminal conviction by our society) as being a signal that such a claim of persecution might actually succeed in fact, in this concrete example posed by the OP.
But it also brings up the question - if Switzerland does not consider possession of X grams of cocaine to be illegal, would they extradite someone to a country where they face charges for that? What if they face “trafficking” charges? Does Swiss law also consider possession of X grams of cocaine de facto evidence of trafficking, or do they require an actual sale?
Canada, for example, legalizes the sale of pot in stores. Presumably, they would not extradite someone for possession charges. (Unauthorized trafficking is still illegal).
Well, countries usually won’t extradite for things that they don’t consider crimes. In the case of the death penalty, we see that in extreme cases, some countries won’t extradite people because they think the punishment is excessive for the alleged crime. OTOH, I’m sure countries don’t routinely refuse to extradite just because the other country’s court may hand down a slightly harsher sentence for a particular crime than theirs would.
So it might depend on whether Switzerland considered the crime in question to be “possession of less than X amount of cocaine”, which isn’t a crime is Switzerland. Or would the crime be “cocaine possession”, which under some circumstances is a crime in Switzerland, and the precise details of each country’s laws wouldn’t be considered relevant?
There are certainly gray areas here, but I very much doubt they will cover this particular situation.
There’s only one way to find out, but it may take 2 to 5 with time off for good behaviour.
There can be a significant gap between what a country might decline to extradite someone for on the one hand and what a country might grant asylum for on the other. Within that gap, there is ample room for someone to simply be deported for overstaying their allotted time in the country, for failing to make out their asylum claim, or perhaps even for failing to secure permission to enter the country to begin with (surely no one here thinks the US is the only country that deports or just straight up denies entry to would-be immigrants and asylum seekers?).
I suspect that this friend will either (a) be promptly denied asylum and deported to the US in short order, (b) enjoy a nice couple of weeks as a tourist in Switzerland, then come to their senses and return to face the music in the US, or (c) spend months or years in Switzerland trying to make out their asylum claim, and then be deported when it’s found to be frivolous, perhaps after having spent time in detention in Switzerland a la Ethan Couch (remember Ethan Couch? Remember how he tried to fight extradition from Mexico, ended up spending a month or so in immigration detention in Mexico, and then finally came to his senses and allowed himself to be returned to the US, but none of that time he spent in detention in Mexico counted towards his sentence? Yeah, I do. I smiled a little on the inside). And then he gets to deal with not only the drug offense, but also whatever charges may be applicable to fleeing the jurisdiction to avoid trial.
Extradite? I read that he got caught in Wisconsin then filed for asylum in Switzerland, not that he filed for asylum while in Switzerland.
Am I wrong?
Where is he now?
That’s a good question. I have to imagine that if he left the US and went to Switzerland while out on bail, that had to violate some sort of law. Or maybe he was somehow tipped off and left the country before the charges were filed?
Whether the OP has made the distinction or not, the way it works is you apply for asylum as or after you arrive at the country your are seeking to reside in. If you have not yet reached that country, you may be a refugee applying for resettlement. Since I doubt very much that the OP’s friend has sought refugee status from the UN, the story only really makes sense if they are actually in or intend to arrive at Switzerland to request asylum.
Regardless, unless there’s a whole lot more to the story, I don’t think they have a chance in hell of getting asylum in Switzerland, or even some lesser kind of protected status (such as might apply if one were not entitled to refugee status or asylum, but did have a credible fear of torture upon return to your homeland). Because, again, if they were successful, then literally anyone else accused of a similar drug offense in the US would be entitled to similar protection if they only present themselves at a point of entry into Switzerland.