Representing Asylum

Meeting Jane Doe and representing her in immigration court was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life.

Jane suffered persecution by the government in Cuba on account of her political opinion. She has a well-founded fear of future persecution if she returns to Cuba. This is the crux of the standard for being granted asylum. Her case seemed to be almost a textbook case of eligibility for asylum, but our country has made asylum cases harder and harder over the past few years. A Biden-era rule prevents people who entered the U.S. between ports of entry from being granted asylum unless an imminent threat of an exceptionally compelling circumstance existed, which specifically includes an imminent threat of kidnapping.

I took this case through Immigration Justice Campaign (IJC), which provides mentorship, practice guides, sample forms, and interpreters if needed. The case moved quickly. I entered my appearance as Jane’s attorney on April 2nd, and soon received the judge’s order to submit all documents prior to the next preliminary hearing on May 7th. The documents in Jane’s case, as with almost all asylum cases, included the asylum application, a declaration (or written statement by the applicant), a brief, an annotated index of all supplemental documents, which included copies of birth certificate, marriage certificate, passport, witness statements, certified translations of documents not in English, corroborating evidence to support the request for asylum, and country condition reports. I uploaded almost 500 pages of documents to the immigration court on May 6th. A few days later, I received the order setting Jane’s case for final hearing on May 23rd.

Jane and I live in different cities, so I first met her virtually. Attorneys are only allowed to meet virtually with female detainees at that facility on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the attorney must request the meeting at least 24 hours in advance. Conferencing in the interpreter often caused technical problems, further complicating our already difficult conversations.

Virtual visits are supposed to be limited to an hour at a time, but, thankfully, staff did not prevent our visits from continuing beyond an hour. Also, when the IJC-provided interpreter was not available, wonderful friends of mine interpreted for me.

Long before I met Jane in person, I knew she would be an outstanding witness for herself. She has an amazing memory and she was unwavering in her accounts of key events. I knew she would do well in court.

My husband and I drove to Jane’s city the Sunday before the following Friday hearing so that I could meet with Jane in person to prepare for the hearing. Another wonderful friend arranged for interpreters to accompany me to the facility to meet with her.

I met with Jane briefly on my own the day we arrived. My husband went with me to the facility that first day. This was my first experience at that facility getting past the guard station, going through security, checking in and receiving a visitor badge, being told no purses (although that rule was unevenly applied throughout the week), cell phone or other electronics, filling out the attorney visitation sheet, and then waiting. That day I had to wait at least an hour before I could see her because I arrived right at the time the facility did “count.” Every day, twice a day, the facility made all detainees go back to their cots and wait there until all detainees had been counted.

So, we waited. Finally, someone opened the locked door and ushered me back to a plexiglass window with a phone. (I found out later that if I wanted to have a “contact” visit with my client, I had to request that in the “remarks” section of the attorney visitation sheet.) Nevertheless, I was able to communicate in terrible Spanish how glad I was to meet her and that I would be back the next day with an interpreter.

But interpreters must be vetted first, facility staff told me as I prepared to leave. They gave me the email address of the SDDO that I needed to request clearance for interpreters, but they warned me that the SDDO might not grant clearance until later in the day the next day, and they advised coming to the facility with the interpreter the next morning at 8 a.m. because the higher ups would be there and might able to grant clearance that morning.

I met with the first interpreter at my short-term rental that evening. She was delightful and regaled us with stories about her childhood. She pointed to the house across the street from us and said her piano teacher had lived there. She also told us about the old convent a block away and rumors that there had been underground tunnels from the convent into Mexico.

I emailed the SDDO that night requesting clearance for the interpreter, and then she and I drove to the facility together Monday morning, arriving a few minutes after 8 a.m. She presented her ID and filled out the clearance form, and then I was asked if I had received an email response from the SDDO attaching the proper clearance request form. Apparently this response came in after I left the house where we were staying, and, unfortunately, I didn’t have access to my gmail account from my phone. This was a problem.

So, we were told to wait while they verified clearance, which we did. We waited, and waited. We asked staff at the desk if there was any progress, and one guy said he would try to get the SDDO’s sign-off himself. Finally, clearance was granted, although I was mildly scolded for not following proper clearance channels.

Around 9:30 a.m. or later, we were escorted past the locked door and into a small room for our visit with Jane. We sat around a built-in metal table on built-in cold, metal stools. It was so nice to finally visit with her in person. The interpreter and Jane seemed to make a connection almost immediately, and the visit went well.

That afternoon I took the interpreter clearance request form to another woman who would be interpreting for me the next day. We had a nice chat, and I knew she would also be great to work with.

I emailed her clearance request and passport photo to the SDDO evening, and the next day, I met her at the facility. We went through the same rigamarole about whether I could verify the request had been approved via my gmail, which I again explained I couldn’t access on my phone, but after some time, we received word that the clearance had been approved, and after waiting a little while longer, we were ushered back to visit with Jane. At this visit, we had to get through the part of Jane’s story that involved her kidnapping, and it was a difficult and emotional conversation. The interpreter was sensitive and caring and gentle.

That same interpreter accompanied me again the next day and once more we faced inquiries about whether she had received clearance, despite the fact that approval was verified the day before. We waited and waited, and I was scolded again for not bringing appropriate documents.

This day felt like the dam had broken. We started out with me explaining the possible and likely outcomes of the final hearing two days away. I explained that the options, as I understood them, were:

1. The judge granted asylum, and the DHS attorney waived appeal. I told her that DHS waiving appeal was extremely unlikely, based on everything I was hearing.

2. The judge granted asylum, and the DHS attorney reserved appeal. In this event, DHS would have had 30 days to file an appeal, guaranteeing that Jane would be detained for at least that 30-day period. I felt like this was our most likely, best-case scenario.

3. The judge denied asylum but granted withholding of removal and we reserved appeal of the asylum denial, but she would continue to be detained until the BIA ruled, which could take many months.

4. The judge denied asylum but granted withholding of removal, and we did not reserve appeal, but there would be the possibility that she could be removed to a third country.

5. A fifth option that we did not discuss is that the judge denied both asylum and withholding of removal, and we appealed, which would guarantee prolonged detention; or we didn’t appeal, which would guarantee deportation.

Jane’s husband’s final hearing date is in June, and he filed his own asylum application, but he doesn’t have an attorney. He is in a facility in New Mexico, and his immigration court is in Otero, New Mexico. However, he is also listed as a derivative beneficiary on Jane’s asylum application and, I thought, would derive the benefit of a grant of asylum to Jane. If she only wins withholding of removal (an order preventing removal to the country of origin, in her case, Cuba), there is no derivative benefit. So, she really needed a grant of asylum.

During this same visit, I showed her witness statements on her behalf that her cousin had gathered, which we had submitted to the court. Jane started to cry when I showed her one of the witness statements - a notarized statement from one of her neighbors vouching for what a good person Jane is and how she had helped the neighbor so much with her special-needs child. (Jane is a nurse.)

The day of the hearing arrived, and I was so nervous before going to court that I thought I was going to vomit. The judge was a hard read at first, and I was worried that he was not going to find that my client’s past suffering met the legal standard of persecution. But after only two hours he announced he was granting asylum, and miraculously, the DHS attorney said she was going to waive appeal. I watched Jane as the interpreter repeated the results in Spanish. I will never forget her face as she realized she had won. It was very emotional.

I was surprised to see that the female guard stationed in the courtroom the entire time also was wiping away tears. After the hearing, I told the guard thank you for caring, and she said, “We all do.”

I went to the detention center the next day on my way out of town. I took a copy of the court order granting her asylum and noting that DHS had waived appeal. Staff said they couldn’t receive the order from me, they would have to receive it from “official channels,” and there was no way Jane would be released that weekend since it was Memorial Day weekend. They told me she would probably be released Tuesday, the 27th.

Pins and needles, and no release Tuesday, but finally on Wednesday evening (the 28th), Jane’s cousin texted me that she had been released and was staying at a church until time to catch her flight the following evening.

What an experience. The next step is to try to get her husband’s separate asylum case resolved and to get him released and reunited with his wife.

Update:
Jane’s son and husband were both granted asylum in summer 2025. The family has been reunited and are building a new life in America.