Pro Se Asylum Remote Workshop

Prof. Kate Evans (Duke Law) reports: "Prof. Kaci Bishop, director of UNC's Immigration Clinic, and I launched a pilot pro se asylum remote workshop this spring with the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy.  We were able to assist about 20 families in filing their asylum applications with immigration court or USCIS to meet either their Mendez Rojas deadlines or their one-year deadlines.  Including derivatives, we assisted closer to 40 people. We've developed limited representation agreements, training materials, a protocol, and cover letter to file with USCIS or the immigration court, which we can share.  We will be revising the process going forward but it worked remarkably well with student teams prepping the I-589s and volunteer pro bono attorneys doing final reviews in person.  There is a brief write up of the project here. We plan to continue the project each semester with new families, students, and potentially new community partners.  I'd be happy to chat (hopefully with the Kaci's participation too) with anyone about how we organized this if you are interested in doing something similar.  Students invested about 20 hours each in preparing the applications and completing the training and worked in teams.  Thanks to Innovation Law Lab for pioneering these workshops.  We had planned to do one with them pre-pandemic and then shifted to a remote model this Spring."