Cynthia Lee, UCLA
In what must be one of the most unusual classes offered at UCLA, a group of 10 law students hold in their hands the fate of people who have found their way to the United States after being persecuted by their governments. These survivors of torture and trauma now fear for their lives if they are forced to return home.
For the students in the School of Law’s Asylum Clinic, it’s a heavy responsibility to shoulder as they work for months to prepare their client for this one chance at being granted asylum — a hearing at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Los Angeles Asylum Office in Anaheim.
In this feature produced by the UCLA Broadcast Studio, the poignant story of a man from Africa, whose identity, background and country must remain anonymous to protect family members still living there, unfolds. UCLA law students Jane Stack and Hammad Alam have been assigned to meticulously build his case for asylum with the help of two veteran attorneys from Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
For five months beginning in January, Stack and Alam establish a bond of trust with the man they call Andrew, painfully extracting and examining details of his detainment, torture and beatings on at least three separate occasions because government officials believed him to be disloyal.
The challenges are many. The two law students feel torn between the need to be objective to spot the “soft” points in his story where his credibility might be most vulnerable and the flood of compassion both feel for his plight. Here is a man who had to leave his young son behind in Africa to secure a better future for them both.
Andrew tried to put the immensity of what has happened to him in his own words: “The bad memories have covered all the beauty of what I had as a person,” he said somberly. “And the beauty of what other people got out of me is all dead.”
“Sometimes,” Stack said, “it’s hard to go back and read what I’ve written … and realize that it’s 15 pages of real human suffering … But we have to distance ourselves from that and be as objective about it as possible so we can effectively apply the facts to the law and make a compelling claim for asylum. I’m trying to know the facts about his life and the law cold so that I can temper my emotions.”
