Penn State Asylum Clinic wins first case

During the Penn State Dickinson School of Law Asylum Clinic’s first semester of operation, second-year law students Alison Babich and Ryan Navarra worked closely with Won Kidane, professor of law and supervisor of the clinic’s operations, on a case for a client seeking asylum after being detained by an immigration officer in December 2005 when he tried to enter the country without proper documentation. Their client is from the highly unstable Democratic Republic of the Congo, where human rights violations occur regularly and often go unpunished. Prior to his arrival in the United States, the client was a socially active, hardworking man who opposed the arbitrary rule of the DRC government. Because of his political beliefs, he suffered severe torture at the hands of the government and became so fearful for his life that he left the Congo to avoid further persecution. On April 14, Babich and Navarra, supervised by Kidane, presented their client’s case, and after nearly five hours in court, the immigration judge granted the plea for asylum. Detainees with limited education and English skills frequently are pitted against accomplished government attorneys, and, because they are not entitled to government-appointed counsel most detainees go unrepresented. While thousands of refugees who come to America looking for safety only to face deportation, this particular refugee’s fate turned out differently, no doubt in part because he had legal representation by the Asylum Clinic.According to immigration law expert Professor Victor Romero, “The current law and practice in immigration/asylum proceedings gives little protection to the non-citizen and much advantage to the government. It is not uncommon for Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys to act quite brazenly, taking full advantage of the informality of the administrative proceedings to get the immigration judges to consider evidence that would likely not be admissible in federal courts. “Sadly, much of immigration law is more like contract law than it is human rights law: the U.S. government gets to decide whether a non-citizen is permitted to enter, and under what conditions she is allowed to stay; should the non-citizen appear unconvincing, she has failed to meet the terms of the contract and is not allowed the privilege of being in the U.S.,” Romero explained. Romero added that Kidane, Babich and Navarra prevailed in “that very difficult context” and should be congratulated for their efforts and success.When asked about the atmosphere in the courtroom, Navarra replied, “It was cordial at first, but it quickly became adversarial in nature because it was clear that the only way the government could win their case was to impeach our client.”Navarra described his overall experience in the clinic as “one of my most enlightening experiences in law school.” Comparing his classroom reading assignments to the case at hand, he said, “Our client’s situation is very much like the cases I’ve read in the Refugee Law Seminar that I’ve been taking with Professor Maluwa this semester, so it’s interesting learning the law and practicing it concurrently. Not only have I put the skills I’ve learned in the classroom to practical use, but I’ve seen the end result of one human being helping another at his or her most vulnerable time.”KJ