Students will help asylum seekers prepare petitions for asylum, using information provided by applicants in written packets and during video or phone interviews. 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.
Organization
Casa Marianella Immigration Legal Services
CMILS serves immigrants, asylum-seekers, asylees, and victims of crime and trafficking in Austin, Texas. CMILS helps newly arrived immigrants residing in the Casa Marianella and Posada Esperanza shelters, as well as other immigrants below the poverty line, in applying for work permits, renewing green cards, seeking asylum, petitioning for family members, preparing applications for U Visas and T Visas, and dealing with other immigration legal matters.
Project Details
- Project Start Date
July 16-31, 2020
- Approximate hours of work requested
- Approximately 12 hours, including training; students will prepare an asylum application after watching the training session and before attorney review begins on August 1; applications can be drafted at any time before attorney review begins
- Training
- Thursday, July 16, 11am-12:30pm via videoconference; participation in the live training session is strongly encouraged as attorneys will be available to answer questions, but the recorded training session will be provided to students who cannot attend the live training
- Skills used
- Client interviewing; document preparation/review
- Project location
- Virtual
- Number of student volunteers requested
- 60
- Class year preference
- 1L, 2L, 3L, LLM
- Required skills
- Language: French, Portuguese, or Spanish helpful but not necessary
- To Apply
- Register directly with Casa Marianella ( https://bit.ly/asylumjuly2020 ); please email Sarah Sedgwick at ssedgwick@law.utexas.edu immediately after you finish drafting the application to report your hours