Persecution Victim Granted Asylum
- Client: Congolese Asylee (via National Immigrant Justice Center)
- Date: August 2009
- Location: United States Immigration Court
Summary:
Schiff Hardin's continuing pro bono work with the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) led to another important victory - the grant of asylum to a client who had suffered torture and persecution in his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
For many years, the family of our client owned a coffee plantation and export business, as well as a small airplane, in Zaire, as the DRC was known at the time. In the mid-1990s the government of Zaire and its leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, were overthrown in a civil war; the new regime, led by Laurent Kabila, began to persecute our client's family due to a perceived link to the former leadership. The Kabila government seized the family business' airplane and twice arrested and tortured our client's brother. When this man attempted to retrieve the airplane in February of 2000, he was arrested, imprisoned, tortured and ultimately "disappeared." He was presumed to have been killed.
When our client, now leading the family business, attempted to reclaim the airplane from the authorities, he too became a target of government violence. On various occasions, he was arrested, beaten and threatened, and was told by his persecutors that his family had no right to own a business or an airplane due to their ethnicity. Ultimately, he was taken to the same notorious unofficial prison that had harbored his brother, where he might have died had not his family's priest arranged for him to be hospitalized. After recovering from severe dehydration and injuries sustained in brutal beatings, he went into hiding with the help of the priest, who eventually helped him to escape from the DRC.
Once in the United States, our client filed an application for asylum. However, with no ability to read, write or speak English, and without the aid of a competent translator, he had his application denied due to alleged inconsistencies between information in his application and his testimony at an asylum hearing. His case was referred to U.S. Immigration Court when Schiff Hardin learned of it from the National Immigrant Justice Center.
Following preliminary proceedings and repeated rescheduling of the merits hearing because of government delays, on June 26, 2008, our client's case was finally tried before the Immigration Court. At the hearing, the government attempted to cast doubt on our client's credibility, suggesting improper procedures in the grant of his visa at the U.S. embassy in the DRC. When the court ordered the government to investigate further and provide a report, Schiff Hardin attorneys anticipated a new round of excuses and delays. They preemptively located an expert witness, a former State Department employee, who testified in a supplemental submission explaining the visa practice and procedures in that region at the time, decimating the government's credibility arguments.
The court commended the Schiff Hardin lawyers for their diligence in putting the credibility issue to rest, ruled in our client's favor, and granted him political asylum.