Month: July 2017

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) is launching a new project—a searchable database of qualified and pre-vetted country specialists and health professionals who serve as expert witnesses to support asylum seekers in the United States. This service will be offered to attorneys and experts alike, free of charge. In other areas of the law, the provision of expert witness referrals is highly developed and professionalized, but this will be the first project of its kind to do so in the asylum field. As many of you know, for nearly twenty years, CGRS has been providing expert referrals through our technical assistance program. We are thrilled to be creating this new resource that will greatly improve our ability to support your cases.

The Asylum Expert Witness Database is scheduled to go live in late 2017 and will contain detailed profiles for hundreds of experts, as well as information, including outcomes, about cases for which they have provided testimony. When available, we will also include sample transcripts of the expert’s prior testimony and any government challenges to an expert’s qualifications. Experts will be able to update their own profiles to include information about current availability and fee requirements. In the meantime, we will continue to provide referrals when requested through our website http://cgrs.uchastings.edu/assistance.

We are currently seeking information from attorneys about recommended country specialists or health professionals for inclusion in the database. Please send information about any recommended experts, including contact information, areas of expertise, and CVs, to CGRS at CGRS-ExpertDB@uchastings.edu. We will follow up with attorneys and the experts themselves as we get closer to the go-live date.

For more information, please contact CGRS Staff Attorney Robyn Barnard at BarnardRobyn@uchastings.edu.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in this endeavor. We hope that the Asylum Expert Witness Database will further enhance the representation and resources provided to asylum seekers across the country.

The CGRS Team

Center for Gender and Refugee Studies

UC Hastings College of the Law

200 McAllister Street | San Francisco, CA 94102

(415) 565-4877 (Phone) | (415) 581-8824 (Fax)
cgrs@uchastings.edu

 

 

 

From DWN

Dear Colleagues:

 

We write to alert you to a new practice advisory, “Working with Child Clients and Their Family Members in Light of the Trump Administration’s Focus on ‘Smugglers,’” issued by CLINIC and Public Counsel available here.  We hope it is useful for practitioners particularly in light of recent reports of enforcement against sponsors.  We also encourage practitioners to report  any instances of enforcement against sponsors or family members of unaccompanied children, so that we can identify trends, collectively strategize, and continue to develop best practices about how to best protect immigrant families. Please report these to me via email and to Rebecca Scholtz at rscholtz@cliniclegal.org.

 

Sincerely,

 

Michelle N. Mendez

Training and Legal Support Senior Attorney

Defending Vulnerable Populations Project Manager

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

Mailing Address: 8757 Georgia Avenue, Suite 850, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Physical Address: OPD, 217 E. Redwood Street, Suite 1020, Baltimore, MD 21202

Cellular Phone: 540.907.1761

Fax Number: 301.565.4824

Email: mmendez@cliniclegal.org

Website: www.cliniclegal.org