Asylum Victory for Liberian Immigrant

• Client: Liberian Asylum-seeker
• Date: March 2009
• Location: San Francisco Immigration Court

Summary:

In another in a series of referrals from the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR), Schiff Hardin attorneys succeeded in convincing the San Francisco Immigration Court to grant asylum to a Liberian woman, a victim of extreme violence as a child and young woman in Liberia, Guinea and the Netherlands, and in convincing the Department of Homeland Security to waive its right to appeal - in all of 45 minutes.

In the 11 months leading up to the trial, the Schiff Hardin team worked with the client to prepare her to communicate her story to the immigration judge, a difficult challenge for her given the unspeakable violence and abuse that she endured beginning at the age of 12.  They also researched the "country conditions" in Liberia; namely, the social system that not only condones violence against women, but also punishes those who choose to speak out about it. In a particularly challenging task, the team located a critical witness on the subject, a UK-trained solicitor working on human rights in Monrovia, Liberia, who provided valuable testimony concerning the conditions in Liberia today and the risks that our client would have faced had she been forced to return there.

The swift adjudication of this case, and the government's waiver of any right to appeal, was the result of the court finding our client credible, and finding persuasive our team's evidence on the risk of persecution she would face if returned to her homeland. It clears the way for our client to build a new life in the United States, free from violence and persecution.