Freedom House (Detroit, U.S.A)
For the past five weeks, I have been working at Freedom House, in Detroit, Michigan. Freedom House is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to serving all the needs of refugee claimants. In fact, I believe that it is the only organization in the U.S. that provides free accommodations, job and skills training, medical and psychiatric care, and of course, legal services to residents. I work with two full time lawyers and a law student in the legal and advocacy department, which is situated directly inside the shelter. Our small legal team caters to approximately 40 residents, but we have a client base of hundreds more who live outside the shelter. The number of clients in need of legal assistance far outweighs the available legal support, and so we are never at a loss for work!
My time at Freedom House has involved a very steep learning curve. In my first week, I was given three of my own clients (all asylum cases) and began working with them right away. My clients (as well as everyone we serve) have survived gross violations of their human dignity, including rape, torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and much more. Preparing my client's asylum cases requires me to have a detailed understanding of their past persecution, and so I have spent a great deal of time listening to their stories, preparing their application and gathering evidentiary documents, including legal research, to support their case. In other words, I have been getting prepared to represent them in court when they have their individual hearings in August. As of today, I have six asylum clients in total, and will be defending at least three of them in court before my internship expires.
Besides working on asylum cases, which take up the greatest percentage of my time, I have also worked on a number of different projects. I have written an appellate brief to the Board of Immigration Appeals to fight against a deportation order, and am currently working with a battered Chinese woman, married to an abusive American citizen, using the Violence against Women Act (again, defending her against deportation). As well, I have met with two members from the UNHCR (one from Ottawa, the other from Washington, D.C.) for monitoring of the Third Safe Country Agreement, which is an agreement passed between the United States and Canada that prohibits most refugee claimants from crossing over the border. My other activities have included advising and working with eligible refugee claimants to cross over to Canada, conducting mock trials to prepare clients for their individual hearings, and legal research on a variety of issues.
There is a great deal of more work that I plan on doing before the end of my internship, including traveling to the asylum office in Chicago, Illinois, to defend one of my clients, as well as litigating several other asylum cases before an Immigration Judge in Detroit. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work at Freedom House. This internship has not only provided a valuable educational experience in asylum law, but has also afforded me the opportunity to greatly deepen my understanding of the history and political landscape of many countries, including Rwanda, Uganda, Guatemala, and more. The clients I have worked with, most of whom were political and human rights activists in their former countries, are some of the most exceptional human beings I have ever known, and I feel honored to have met them. This internship has definitely been the most rewarding job I have ever had, and I will be very sorry to see it end in August.
I am very thankful to the International Human Rights Program for making this experience possible.
