PRACTICE AREA

Asylum: proving what would happen if you returned

We handle affirmative asylum — claims filed directly with USCIS, not defense in immigration court. An asylum claim is a factual case about what happened to you and what would happen if you went back, and it is won on the credibility of your account and the strength of the record that supports it.

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Asylum protects people who cannot safely return to their country because of persecution, or a well-founded fear of persecution, on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or who they are. Each of those words is a legal term with decades of case law behind it, and a claim fails as often on the legal framing as on the facts. Our work is making sure both are right before anything is filed.

The one-year deadline

The application is ordinarily due within one year of your last arrival in the United States. If that year has passed, exceptions exist — but they must be proven, not assumed.

There are recognized exceptions — changed circumstances that materially affect your eligibility, and extraordinary circumstances that caused the delay. Both must be established with evidence and filed within a reasonable period afterward. A late claim needs to be assessed carefully rather than filed hopefully, because a filing that fails on timeliness can do lasting damage to everything that follows. We assess your timing at the very first conversation, before anything else.

How we build the claim

The declaration

Everything rests on your written account. We draft it with you over several conversations, not one, because difficult memories do not produce a clean chronology on the first telling. Then we test it — against your own documents, against dates you have given the government elsewhere, and against the inconsistencies an officer will look for. It is far better that we find them than that an adjudicator does.

Country-conditions evidence

A generic packet of State Department reports is not a record. What persuades is evidence specific to your region, your profile, and your period: documentation of what happens to people like you, in the place you are from, at the time you left. Where a claim would benefit from expert material on political or social conditions, we say so early, because arranging it takes time.

Corroboration

Medical records, police reports, threatening messages, membership documents, news coverage, and statements from people who witnessed what happened. Documents in another language need certified translations prepared to the standard the agency requires — we handle those, and for Russian-language documents we review the translations ourselves.

The interview

An asylum officer questions you about your declaration in detail, through an interpreter if you need one. The interview is not adversarial in form, but it is searching, and inconsistency with what you have written or previously told the government is the most common reason a claim fails. We prepare you specifically for it — including a practice session covering the questions your particular case will draw.

If you are already in immigration court

We do not represent clients in removal proceedings before the immigration court. If you have received a Notice to Appear or already have a hearing date, your case needs a different kind of representation — and time matters. We will tell you this at the first contact, plainly and without charge for the answer, and point you toward attorneys who do that work. What we do not do is take a case we are not built to carry.

After a grant

Asylees may work immediately, may petition for a spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one within two years of the grant, and may apply for permanent residence one year after being granted asylum. We handle each of those steps for our clients rather than leaving you to find someone new — and we calendar the residence date at the moment of the grant.

QUESTIONS

Frequently asked

The application is ordinarily due within one year of your last arrival. Exceptions exist for changed circumstances affecting your eligibility and for extraordinary circumstances that caused the delay, but they must be established with evidence rather than simply asserted. A late claim should be assessed by a lawyer before anything is filed — we do this assessment at the first consultation.
You may apply for employment authorization after your application has been pending for a required waiting period, provided the delay is not attributable to you. The rules on this have changed more than once in recent years, so we confirm the current position at the time you file rather than relying on what was true last year.
An asylum officer questions you about your declaration in detail, through an interpreter if you need one. The interview is searching, and inconsistencies with what you have written or previously told the government are the most common reason a case fails. We prepare you specifically for it.
A spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one who are in the United States can generally be included on your application. Those abroad can be petitioned for within two years of a grant. Tell us about every family member at the first meeting, wherever they are.
No — we handle affirmative claims filed with USCIS, and court proceedings require a different kind of representation. But do not let that stop you from contacting us: we will tell you so immediately and point you toward attorneys who do removal defense. If you have a hearing date, do not miss it under any circumstances, and get representation quickly — some forms of relief have their own deadlines that run separately from your hearing.