Seminar Outline

Speaker bios

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Each call features an hour of analysis, strategy and practice tips, followed by questions and answers from participants. MCLE Credits in CA, TX and other states (click here for more details).

SEMINAR OUTLINE

FIRST Phone Session on June 24: Termination of asylum; Procedural issues before Headquarters Asylum Office

Termination of asylum:

1. Grounds of termination with a focus on reavailment
2. Standard of proof
3. How USICS identifies cases for termination
4. Procedures before USCIS
5. Procedures before EOIR
6. How to challenge a notice of intent to terminate

1. Role of USCIS Asylum HQ
2. Types of cases referred to HQ
3. How to get cases unstuck

SECOND Phone Session on July 15: Terrorist Grounds of Inadmissibility

1. Brief overview of grounds
2. Definitions: Terrorist activities and terrorist organizations
3. Effect of bars on refugees, asylum seekers and persons granted withholding of removal
4. Exemption authority
5. Exemptions in removal proceedings
6. Duress waivers
7. Update on categories of cases which are currently pending at HQ and policy guidance

THIRD Phone Session on August 5: Hot Topics

Gang-based asylum claims

1. Overview of current case law
2. Defining the particular social group
3. Establishing a claim based on political opinion
4. Establishing a claim based on religion
5. UNHCR Guidelines
6. Identifying resources

1. Definition of UAC
2. Procedures for adjudicating their claims before USCIS

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Anna Marie Gallagher (Discussion Leader) is a Shareholder at Maggio + Kattar in Washington, D.C. and the head of the litigation and global immigration practice areas. Anna has practiced in the field of immigration and refugee law for more than two decades, working in the United States, Central America and Europe. Her experience includes private practice, legal advocacy in the nonprofit sector and several years in academia. In addition to her practice and teaching experience, Anna has authored many articles and books on U.S. immigration and nationality issues. She is the author of West Thomson’s Immigration Law Service 2d and co-author along with Thomas Hutchins of the Immigration Pleadings and Practice Manual. Anna also co-authored West Thomson’s Immigration Trial Handbook with Maria Baldini-Potermin. She is the author of AILA’s Focus on Private Bills & Pardons in Immigration (2008). She remains active in international refugee and migrant issues and is the President of the International Detention Coalition, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights for refugees and migrants around the world who are subject to administrative detention.

Regina Germain is a veteran asylum attorney and former senior legal counselor for the Washington, D.C. office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She teaches Asylum Law and an Asylum Practicum at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. She also served as Legal Director of the recently closed Rocky Mountain Survivors Center. She remains active in the torture treatment community’s National Capacity Building program and recently completed development of the legal portion of the fundamentals course to be given to staff at torture treatment centers across the United States. She is a frequent speaker at local and national conferences on asylum and refugee issues and has written numerous articles. She is the author of AILA’s Asylum Primer, Sixth Edition.

Molly Groom is the Chief of the Refugee and Asylum Law Division with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security. She has held this position since 2002. Molly joined the Immigration & Naturalization Service, Department of Justice through the Attorney General's Honors Program in 1996. She served as a Trial Attorney in New York for two years and then came to Washington to join the Refugee and Asylum Division. In 2000, Molly received the Commissioner's Attorney of the Year Award for her work on TPS and a legislative proposal relating to Human Rights Abusers. She briefly served on the National Security Law Division working on cases involving human rights violations. During 2001 and part of 2002, Molly worked with the United Nations as a Legal Advisor and Assistant Trial Attorney for the Transitional Authority in East Timor, where she worked in the Serious Crimes Unit prosecuting cases involving murder, rape, crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. She received her undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1992. In 1996, she graduated cum laude from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and earned a Masters in Applied Social Sciences from the Mandel School. Molly received her Masters of Law from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2005.

Anwen Hughes is Senior Counsel and Deputy Director of the Refugee Protection Program at Human Rights First, where she has worked since 1999. Anwen oversees Human Rights First's pro bono representation program for indigent asylum seekers. Anwen provides training and support to volunteers from law firms in New York and New Jersey who represent asylum seekers through Human Rights First’s program and assists in Human Rights First’s local and national advocacy on asylum issues. Before joining Human Rights First, Anwen was a staff attorney with a local legal services office in New Jersey. She graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in Classics and from Yale Law School.

Jedidah Hussey was named Deputy Chief of the USCIS Asylum Division since March 2008. She joined the legacy INS Office of International Affairs in 1997 through the Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) Program after receiving a BS in Russian Language and an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Georgetown University. Upon completion of her Fellowship in September 1999, Ms. Hussey joined the Asylum Division's Resource Information Center (RIC) as an asylum officer, specializing in research on the countries of the former Soviet Union, and Central and Eastern Europe. In January 2001 she joined the Asylum Division's Quality Assurance and Training Branch, where she wrote and updated the Asylum Division training materials, developed legal guidance on the adjudication of asylum cases, and conducted quality assurance review of sensitive asylum cases referred to HQ. In October 2005 she was promoted to Supervisory Asylum Officer with responsibility for the management of the Asylum Division Operations Branch. In January 2006 she became the supervisor of the Asylum Division's Training, Research, and Quality Branch, which is responsible for issuing Asylum Division legal guidance asylum adjudications, the development and implementation of national asylum officer training programs, and the research of country conditions information relating to asylum claims. Ms. Hussey also holds a J.D. from Georgetown University.

Karen Musalo has been at Hastings since 1997, following years of teaching, as well as lawyering in the non-profit world. She has written numerous articles on refugee law issues, with a focus on gender asylum, as well as religious persecution, and conscientious objection as bases for refugee status. Professor Musalo has contributed to the evolving jurisprudence of asylum law not only through her scholarship, but through her litigation of landmark cases. She was lead attorney in Matter of Kasinga (fear of female genital cutting as a basis of asylum), which continues to be cited as authority in gender asylum cases by tribunals from Canada to the United Kingdom to New Zealand. Her current work examines the linkage between human rights violations and migration, with a focus on the phenomenon of femicides in Guatemala, and its relation to requests for refugee protection from Guatemalan women. Courses Taught: Refugee Law & Policy, Hastings to Haiti Seminar, and Refugee & Human Rights Clinic.

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Disclaimer: participation in this seminar does not create an attorney-client relationship with the speakers

                        

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