Asylum Hearing

I went to our client's asylum hearing this morning. Three of my school friends also came to watch. I was so nervous for our client--my stomach was all knotted up. He's a member of a political party in the Republic of Guinea that is opposed to the country's military dictatorship. Because of his party activities he was imprisoned twice and tortured repeatedly--has horrible lasting scars from this torture. Members of his family have been attacked, raped, and killed because of their political affiliations. Finally he fled the country to come to the USA. He's waited a very long time (five years) to have his case heard by the immigration judge, and in the time he hasn't seen his wife and children, who are in a refugee camp. Usually the immigration judge grants or denies a case in the same day, but she did not issue a decision today. She is inclined to grant the case, however, pending results on some credibility issues (they check fingerprints and photographs to make sure that he doesn't have a criminal record, etc.). Obviously it would have been wonderful to get a grant today, but we are very happy with the results and will be filing a motion to grant asylum at his next hearing in May.

I had hoped to be back at school by noon because we had a great speaker come in, Joe Marguiles. He is a professor at the University of Chicago, and has been representing detainees at Guantanamo bay. He was counsel in a landmark case last year (Rasul v. Bush) and was recently in the news because of the Habib case (the Australian guy who was recently released). Our student chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild (progressive lawyer's association/alternative to ABA) brought him in to speak last semester and he was amazing. My classmates left the hearing early, but I decided to stay, so I didn't make it back to school in time to see Mr. Marguiles. It sounds like he had a great socratic-style lecture on torture that I missed out on. Greg and I stopped for lunch on our way back from court and I got back to school just in time to slip into Constitutional Law.

Summra, Mike and I went to Happy Hour at Eli's after class to discuss the founding of the UST Amnesty International Chapter. We're hoping to show some films and bring in some speakers etc. If any of you know of a potential speaker please let me know. The Federalist Society is kicking our butts at bringing speakers to the school so we're trying to get some representation. Right now we're looking for a good speaker to talk about prisoners of conscience in Cuba or China.

Am planning to spend the night at the library catching up on everything I should have done this weekend when I was busy washing my silk dress and going to Law Prom.