Asylum Access

What is Asylum Access?

Asylum Access is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making refugee rights an on–the–ground reality in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Asylum Access envisions a world where refugees are seen as people with rights, not just people with needs. Asylum Access believes that by empowering refugees to assert their human rights, we can create effective, lasting solutions for refugees around the world.

What does Asylum Access do?

Asylum Access helps refugees get asylum – legal sanctuary – in the first countries to which they flee, in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Asylum Access also helps refugees to assert their other internationally–recognized human rights, such as the right to work, send children to school, and access local healthcare services. Our work protects refugees from unlawful or unjust detention, deportation, torture and death, and helps them to begin rebuilding their lives in a new home, free from fear.

Based on our experiences on the ground, Asylum Access advocates at national and international levels for improved refugee policy. Asylum Access's policy work ensures that refugee rights on paper are implemented in practice. Asylum Access also educates the public on refugee rights and the importance of rights-based assistance. Our public education fosters an understanding of refugees not just as people with needs, but also as people with rights.

Why is Asylum Access needed?

Imagine fleeing from a government that threatens to torture or kill you, only to arrive in a foreign country without travel papers, without money, without access to your bank account. Imagine you don?t even speak the local language. Could you go into a courtroom, alone, and convince a judge that you shouldn?t be deported?

Refugees fearing persecution or fleeing civil war usually land first in a country near their own – in today's world, primarily somewhere in the global south: Africa, Asia or Latin America. Traumatized by what they have already endured, recent refugees are especially vulnerable to violations of their legal rights. Many of them face immediate deportation directly into the hands of a government that threatens to torture, imprison or kill them. Many more are "warehoused" for years or generations in refugee camps on the margins of society, unable to work, move freely, or re–establish a permanent home.

How does Asylum Access help?

Asylum Access partners with local organizations to give refugees on–the–ground access to legal advocates in their first countries of refuge, through the creation and support of refugee law projects. Under the oversight of a local director, refugee law projects provide legal counsel and representation to refugees seeking asylum, and undertake strategic litigation and advocacy to transform internationally–recognized human rights into a practical reality for refugees.

Legal Counsel & Representation
Legal advocates help refugees to understand their rights, and assist them in seeking asylum. Asylum–related assistance can include helping refugees to draft testimony statements or legal arguments, accompanying refugees to asylum or status determination hearings, connecting them with other service providers such as interpreters or psychologists, and advocating for those with special needs, such as unaccompanied children or victims of gender–based violence. In some countries, Asylum Access's legal advocates may also help refugees to assert other rights such as employment, education, equal protection or freedom of movement.

Strategic Litigation
Strategic litigation establishes refugee rights through "test cases" in local courts. If one refugee goes to court to get a work permit, and succeeds, the court's decision in that single case will pave the way for all refugees to seek employment. Similarly, if an unaccompanied child refugee succeeds in asserting her right to schooling, her case will establish that all refugee children have a right to education. As refugee law projects develop, they can take on cases that go beyond mere asylum, helping refugees to assert all of the rights that are so critical to rebuild and heal.

Advocacy and Education
Advocacy at local and international levels reinforces individual legal representation. As patterns of rights violations emerge, policy advocates bring these violations to the attention of authorities who are in a position to make change — government officials, the local judiciary, the United Nations and others. Education is a key component of advocacy. Education of non–refugees in the global south helps local populations understand the rights of refugees living among them. Education of people in the U.S., who historically are familiar only with humanitarian aid to refugees, demonstrates the need for rights–based refugee advocacy and legal aid.