Mahsa Izadpanah
Freedom House (Detroit)
During the summer of 2005, I was very fortunate to participate in an International Human Rights Program Internship at Freedom House, located in Detroit, Michigan. Freedom House, a non-profit organization established approximately twenty years ago in one of the oldest convents in the United States, is dedicated to meeting the various needs of asylum claimants. Importantly, it is the only organization in the United States with a holistic approach towards assisting asylum seekers: it provides free accommodations, job and skills training, medical and psychiatric care, and of course, legal services to its clients. Freedom House accommodates between thirty to forty residents at any given time (often including children), the vast majority of whom are from various parts of sub-Saharan Africa, but also serves the legal needs of hundreds of other clients in the Detroit area. It was an amazing experience for me to witness diverse groups of people (many of whom were from conflict groupssuch as Hutus and Tutsis) living peacefully and cooperatively under the same roof.
As a member of the legal department, situated directly inside the shelter, I worked with two full time lawyers and a co-intern. Although my supervisors provided me with a variety of assignments to work on, the majority of my time wasspent preparing asylum claims for five of my own clients. My clients, and indeed, all of the residents at Freedom House, had survived gross violations of their basic human rights. They had endured unspeakable horrors- including rape, torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, enslavement, and much more. I spent a great deal of time obtaining information about their individual cases by communicating with them, and followed through by gathering evidentiary documents and conducting research to validate their stories. I also kept detailed records of their past persecutions, and prepared a written testimony for each client that would eventually be carefully scrutinized by a judge or immigration officer. I faced many challenges while working with my clients. For example, speaking to them about the tortures they endured (in great detail) was at times overwhelming. As well, it was very difficult knowing that they all faced an uphill battle, and that some were unlikely to win their hearings. Although they had managed to get themselves unto American soil, there was no guarantee that they would be allowed to remain there.
Prior to the commencement of my internship I had been warned by one of my supervising attorneys that my work would be very emotionally demanding, but despite his warning, my time there proved to be more of a challenge than I had expected. Due to limited legal personnel and restricted financial resources, Freedom House could only afford to represent clients fleeing the most atrocious human rights violations; I never imagined that I would be working so closely with people who had faced such horrendous abuses. I had never worked with victims of trauma and violence before (certainly not of this magnitude), and found myself greatly affected by their experiences. Clients often broke down crying as they recounted the abuses they had endured, and I was on occasion at a loss over how to respond, and indeed, over how to hold my own tears back.
One of the most important skills I developed through this experience was balancing my emotions with my professional responsibilities. I had to learn to maintain a level of emotional distance from my clients, and cope with my personal frustrations over a legal system that was too often unresponsive to their needs. By the end of my internship, I had learned a great deal about refugee law, but more importantly, I learned that although human rights work sometimes leaves one with a feeling of hopelessness, it can be a tremendously rewarding experience. It was rewarding to realize that through my legal education I could empower and fight for marginalized and disadvantaged people, and achieve substantive and life changing outcomes for them.
In addition to working on asylum cases, I also worked on a number of different projects; including drafting an appellate brief to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and drafting petitions using the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to fight deportation orders against landed immigrants married to abusive American husbands. The plight of immigrant women facing abuse has always been of deep concern to me, and thus advocating for them was especially important to me.
This internship has not only provided me with a valuable educational experience in asylum law, but has also afforded me the opportunity to greatly deepen my understanding of the history and political landscape of many countries, including Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon, Guatemala, and more. The clients I worked with, many of whom were political and human rights activists in their former countries, were among the finest people that I have ever met, and I feel honored to have known them. This internship has definitely been the most rewarding job I have ever had, and I will cherish the experience always.