asylum / immigration
In 2020, Jenner & Block devoted nearly 7,000 hours to asylum, immigration, and trafficking matters. While most cases in this category are confidential and cannot be shared with the public, the stories featured offer a heartfelt look at pro bono clients who secured better lives in the United States.
I have worked on over 30 asylum cases at Jenner & Block, primarily through the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). Our firm regularly partners with NIJC on asylum matters, and through that partnership I joined NIJC’s Leadership Board and eventually became co-chair. Through asylum cases, I have been able to help many deserving and amazing people start new lives in the United States. I have also been able to combine the protection of human rights with my dedication to a free press by representing several journalists who defied authoritarian regimes and were brutalized as a result. I have assisted children who fled abusive homes and victims of torture from several countries who have shown remarkable bravery in the face of threats, hardship, and violence. I remain close with many of my asylum clients, and I introduced my young son to some of them recently and told him, “You are about to meet real superheroes.” For me, the duty to perform pro bono stems from the simple realization that I’m in a place to help others, and if the roles were reversed I would want someone in my position to help me. Pro bono helps people in need and that is why I do it, full stop. It also keeps me grounded and has enriched my life in countless ways. We are taught in law school how important it is that everyone has adequate legal representation, but not until you are in practice do you understand how significant pro bono representation really is in our legal system.”
– Partner and Pro Bono Committee Member Wade Thomson
Human trafficking survivor Bainie Mama looks forward to a secure life in the United States
Fourth of July Week Sees T-Visas Secured for Two Trafficking Survivors
Within a two-week time period that symbolically coincided with the Fourth of July holiday, the same Jenner & Block team secured two T-Visas for two clients: a labor-trafficking survivor from the Philippines and a sex-trafficking survivor from South America.
The team was led by Partner Cindy Robertson with vital contributions from Associates Eric Herendeen and Alex Langlinais.
The Labor Trafficking Survivor
Our client was born and raised in Mindanao, Philippines, an area plagued by danger and economic hardship stemming from civil and political unrest. A serial victim of trafficking, she was eventually trafficked to New York by a Qatari diplomat serving at the United Nations in 2008. Though our client had signed a two-year contract to serve as a housekeeper and nanny for a monthly income of $1,600, her traffickers paid her only $0.53 per hour, or 7% of New York’s minimum wage at that time. The traffickers confiscated her passport and did not allow her to leave their 22nd floor apartment. They required her to work around the clock, caring for four children under age 10 – the youngest an infant. They also subjected her to verbal abuse, inhumane working conditions, and failed to provide her with a single day off for 13 months. When our client asked to be returned home, her employers refused, demanding she pay back the “debt” of travel expenses they had paid to bring her to the United States. She finally escaped in November 2009, after finding her confiscated passport hidden away in a closet.
In 2017, she was referred to Jenner & Block by former partner Martina Vandenberg of the Human Trafficking Legal Center. Obtaining a T-Visa for our client was complicated by three key factors: (1) a falsified birth certificate (created by her first trafficker and which corrupted all of her identity documents); (2) the length of time between her escape in 2009 and her application for a T-Visa; and (3) more challenging policies and procedures issued by the Trump administration.
Jenner & Block surmounted these challenges. First, the team employed a “shock and awe” strategy of obtaining overwhelming first-hand knowledge of our client’s birth, supported by handwritten declarations of friends and family in the Philippines. Second, we provided persuasive, first-hand medical knowledge regarding her fear of coming forward to explain the nearly 10-year period between her escape and her T-Visa application. Finally, we overcame the difficult “requests for additional evidence” by providing thorough and well-documented explanations and evidence. These efforts led to a successful outcome.
Our client looks forward to a career in child-care, obtaining her first driver’s license, and eventually obtaining a green card.
The Sex Trafficking Survivor:
This client was born in South America. After 10 years of marriage, she and her husband divorced. With little formal education, she was left unable to support herself and her son in her home country. A woman befriended her and fraudulently enticed her to come to the United States for better opportunities. When our client arrived at her destination – an apartment in Virginia – her passport and belongings were taken. For a period of years, her trafficker forced our client to provide sex work in different apartments and hotels throughout Virginia and New York by threatening to harm her family in South America. She was forced to endure abusive and unpredictable clients, who often acted under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The lead trafficker (who sometimes performed sex work) had operatives in South America (like the one who had originally “befriended” her) who would spy on her family. The lead trafficker would then use this information to manipulate our client into compliance, sharing details about her family to ensure she knew the threats to their safety were real. Even more traumatizing, certain corrupt members of the local Virginia police department protected the lead trafficker in exchange for sex and other favors.
Our client suffered extreme trauma at the hands of her trafficker. She felt dehumanized and trapped, fearing that to escape would result in immediate danger to herself and her family. She found courage to escape after one of her clients promised to help her with talk of marriage and a better life. Following their marriage, her husband physically and mentally abused her and on threat of returning her to her original trafficker, re-trafficked our client to pay his own debts.
The team took on this matter on an emergency basis in 2018, again as a referral from the Human Trafficking Legal Center. The team supported our client through at least five intense interviews with the FBI, where she relived her trauma in identifying other victims, perpetrators, and locations. On the basis of her critical testimony, the authorities arrested and prosecuted the lead trafficker, who pled guilty and received a 36-month sentence in exchange for cooperation and information. The firm team served as victim’s counsel, submitted a victim impact statement, and defended her right to restitution and other benefits.
At the same time, the team secured much needed support for our client, including social services and medical benefits through Ayuda, a non-profit organization, and separately through the FBI’s victim assistance program. The team filed for a T-Visa for both our client and her son. Obtaining the T-Visa was complicated by several factors, including her prior arrest record, her adult status when trafficked, and the fact that her trafficker would return her to South America throughout the trafficking period in order to preserve her ability to re-enter the United States. We successfully overcame all of these challenges, and secured a “waiver of inadmissibility” (even under heightened scrutiny imposed under the Trump administration) that allowed approval of our client’s T-Visa.
Through our support and that of a friend who encouraged her to call the 800-trafficking hot-line number, our client is on a path of recovery. In a call, she proudly reported that she was promoted to a “technician” at the optometrist’s office where she has been working for the past year. She hopes to obtain a college degree and pursue a career in nursing.
Team Files Amicus Brief in Case Regarding Forced Separation of a Father and Son at the Border
The plaintiffs are a father and his toddler son who seek redress for their forced separation at the border when they tried to enter the country. The amicus brief was submitted in support of their opposition to the government’s motion to dismiss their claims. Filed on behalf of a Stanford law professor and clinicians, the brief argues that the Trump Administration’s forced family separation policy is torture under international law. “Since the inception of the Trump Administration’s family separation policy, amici curiae have important experience studying the mental and physical suffering endured by separated families. As a result, amici curiae have a significant interest in Plaintiffs’ allegations that the separation of D.J.C.V. from G.C., his asylum-seeking parent, constituted torture in violation of international human rights law,” reads the brief.
The team writing the brief includes Partners Brian Fischer, Debbie Berman, and Andrew Vail; Associates Brandon Polcik and Corinne Smith; Law Clerk Sara Cervantes; and Senior Paralegal Cheryl Olson.
“It is like a big American family is opening its arms to welcome me in.”
— Anara
Asylum Granted for LGBTQ Kyrgyz Woman
Our client, Anara is a young woman from Kyrgyzstan who fled to the United States seeking freedom from persecution because she was targeted, beaten, and raped for being a lesbian. Kyrgyzstan is a dangerous place for LGBTQ individuals, as the Kyrgyzstan government encourages the harassment of LGBTQ individuals and supports far-right anti-LGBTQ nationalist groups.
Anara knew that she was gay since she was in middle school, but kept it a secret because in her community, to be gay was to be diseased or to be possessed by demon. Anara told her mother about her feelings for some of her female classmates, which her mother dismissed as a “phase.” Anara did not tell her father about her feelings, because he is a stern and deeply religious man. As Anara grew up, she excelled as a student, but was often mocked and ridiculed because she did not wear skirts, dresses, or high heels—all of which were expected of women in Kyrgyzstan. In her first year of college, Anara was elected to be class president, only to be told by administrators that she had to choose between the way she dressed and her position as president. Anara resigned.
Throughout her childhood and through her first year of college, Anara hid her sexuality. But the façade fell apart when she went home for winter break to celebrate her 18th birthday with her family. The family had prepared a large meal to celebrate the occasion, and Anara’s father asked to use her mobile phone to take a picture of everyone. After taking the picture, Anara’s father scrolled through Anara’s screenshots and discovered images of lesbian women, rainbow flags, and depictions from the film “Blue is the Warmest Color.”
Her father flew into a rage, cursing to the heavens for giving him a gay daughter. He repeatedly struck Anara until she fell to the ground. He picked up a cutting board and continued until Anara fell unconscious. He then locked her in an unheated barn overnight—in December. He refused for days to allow her to eat, take painkillers, or seek medical attention. Instead, he gathered leaders and other members of the local mosque, and invited them to the house to “cleanse” Anara. They took Anara outside, threw her into freezing water, and then dumped her into the shower, chanting prayers. They picked her up and pulled her arms and legs in opposite directions, and forced our client’s eyes to remain open so that the “demons” could escape.
Anara was bed-ridden for some time after the beatings and conversion therapy. But once she had some time to heal, she escaped her house. She had no money or support, so she went to a local police station for shelter. She found more persecution instead. Two male police officers took her into a room in the police station and questioned her. Although they seemed kind at first, when Anara told them why her father had beaten her—because she was a lesbian—the officers laughed and mocked her. The officers took Anara down a hallway to another room and locked the door behind them. Despite Anara’s tears and pleas for them to stop, the officers raped her.
The officers released Anara the following day, and she managed to get back her dorm at college. She knew she needed to flee somewhere safe—somewhere should could be free. To her, that was America. She finished the spring semester at the university and traveled to the United States in May of 2017 on a J-1 visa. She filed her petition for asylum a few months later.
In 2018, Partner Peter J. Brennan and then-associate Garrett Fitzsimmons partnered with the National Immigrant Justice Center and lawyers from JP Morgan Chase to take on her case. They collected documentary evidence, drafted a brief, and prepared Anara for an eventual interview, even though an interview was not expected to come for many years. In the middle of 2020, the team sought an expedited interview, which was granted. They were given two-weeks’ notice and prepared Anara for her interview and finalized the brief. Anara was calm, brave, and passionate in her interview. Within 48 hours of Anara’s interview, the government granted her petition for asylum. When the team told Anara that she had been granted asylum, she cried and told them, “It is like a big American family is opening its arms to welcome me in.”