How to get free or low cost help on my political asylum case in San Francisco?
While it may sound odd for an immigration attorney to talk about free legal assistance, I am devoting this post to that very topic. Sometimes it is just not possible for to pay for legal services - especially when trying to file for political asylum in the United States. Political asylum applicants have it the hardest. They have escaped from their country of persecution with little money. They may have been tortured in their country and just needed to get out. They do not have money to hire an attorney, yet, it is difficult to win asylum in the United States without a lawyer. Understanding the asylum laws and how to meet your burden of proof are difficult and complex concepts such that I would strongly urge an applicant to hire an attorney. Fortunately for us in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is an organization that can help.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area has an asylum program in which they will help an applicant find an attorney to take on the case. First, the Lawyers' Committee staff will interview potential applicants. If the potential applicant has a legitimate case and really no source of income, the asylum program staff will then find a volunteer attorney to take on the case. The volunteer attorney may or may not have experience in asylum law but the Lawyers' Committee staff will assign a mentor attorney to the volunteer attorney so the volunteer will have someone whom to direct questions. It is a terrific system. Applicants receive great quality representation.
For those of us who are immigration attorneys, most of us started out our career by taking pro bono asylum cases through the Lawyers' Committee. It was a terrific resource for me when I first began. I received free training, great resource materials and I was paired up with a volunteer mentor attorney and interpreter. It was exciting to work on a real case and feel that I had a great deal of support.
If you are interested in obtaining free legal help for your asylum case and you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may call the Lawyers' Committee and ask to speak to someone in the asylum program. Their phone number is (415) 543-9444.
