Students will assist Catholic Charities attorneys in preparing final submission packets for asylum applicants who have fled Venezuela or Turkey, and that, if granted, will provide those applicants with legal status in the United States. Asylum is available to immigrants who have fled their home countries because of persecution and/or torture due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. The attorneys at Catholic Charities began assisting individuals from Venezuela and Turkey with their respective claims for asylum on these bases since conditions began deteriorating recently in these countries. Their office anticipates an upcoming surge in asylum interviews for these applicants.
The project requires writing declarations, obtaining evidence, researching common claims of persecution by applicants recently fleeing Venezuela and Turkey, and outreach to potential country condition experts that can provide expert legal testimony for a number of specific, common issues shared by the many of the applicants from these two countries. By the end of the project, students will have helped compile a useful set of documents and templates that will be used in upcoming affirmative asylum interviews with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Organization
Catholic Charities of Central Texas
Since 2002, Immigration Legal Services (ILS) of Catholic Charities of Central Texas has provided affordable legal consultations, representation, and assistance in Central Texas to low-income immigrants of all cultural and religious backgrounds. Our experienced staff guides clients through the complex immigration process in order to obtain immigration benefits for qualified individuals, to reunite families, and to promote awareness of current immigration topics.
Project Details
- Project Date
- March 2018
- Approximate hours of work requested
- 20 hours over the spring semester
- Training
- A short training will be held at a date in early March (TBD)
- Skills used
- Legal research/writing; document preparation/review; communication and outreach to locate and secure expert legal witnesses to provide affidavits for common issues among the applicants from these two countries.
- Project location
- Project tasks may be completed at a location of the student’s choice; depending on the specific task, which will be assigned at the training session, coordinating with other volunteers may be advisable.
- Number of student volunteers requested
- 5
- Class year preference
- 1L, 2L, 3L
- Required skills
- Language: Advanced English written proficiency; proficiency in Spanish or Turkish is helpful but not necessary.
- To Apply
- Submit email stating interest to Sarah Sedgwick at ssedgwick@law.utexas.edu