Asylum Access

Emily E. Arnold-Fernandez, Esq
Executive Director

Emily Arnold-Fernandez is the founder and executive director of Asylum Access. An attorney who has practiced in a variety of areas relating to civil and human rights, Emily first became involved in refugee rights in 2002, when she represented refugees in refugee status determination (RSD) proceedings before the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Her first client was a young Liberian who had fled to Egypt to avoid being abducted and forced to fight as a child soldier. Because he was initially denied legal status as a refugee, he was at continual risk of being arrested, detained and deported by Egyptian authorities unless he could get the decision reversed -- and he only had one chance to do so. Emily's legal advocacy won her client protection and safety in Egypt until his eventual resettlement in the U.S.

Unfortunately, Cairo was one of the few places where refugees had access to legal advocates like Emily. Recognizing that refugees throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America -- some of whom had fled with nothing more than the clothes on their backs -- were almost always unequipped to go into a legal proceeding in a foreign country, alone, and explain why they should not be deported, Emily founded Asylum Access to provide legal advocacy to refugees throughout the global south. Asylum Access partners with local organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America to develop refugee legal aid projects that empower refugees to assert their legal rights to live safely, seek employment, send children to school, and begin rebuilding their lives.

Asylum Access is by no means Emily's first foray into human rights. Prior to founding Asylum Access, Emily worked on gender discrimination issues at Equal Rights Advocates, including the landmark case against Wal-Mart, the largest employment discrimination case in U.S. history. Previously, she was involved in a variety of international human rights projects: she conducted research on Spain's attempt to extradite General Augusto Pinochet of Chile to stand trial for crimes against humanity, served as Rapporteur for the African NGO Refugee Protection Network, and collaborated with a Nigerian human rights organization to draft a marriage and divorce code that would protect women's rights while complying with Shar'ia (Koranic law) mandates.

Emily is particularly passionate about Asylum Access because it has the power to transform refugee rights from paper promises in international conventions to actual, on-the-ground empowerment in individual lives. "For half a century, refugees have had international legal rights to live safely, to seek employment and send their children to school and start rebuilding their lives. But those rights are meaningless unless they are respected on the ground," she says. "Asylum Access provides a rare opportunity to fill a gaping hole in our human rights system -- by making refugee rights a reality for real people."