Policy Advocacy & Scholarship

Policy Advocacy

• HIRC students and instructors drafted guidelines, eventually adopted by the U.S. government, detailing gender-specific human rights violations as a basis for asylum status under U.S. and international law.

• HIRC established international precedent that rape constitutes torture in a case before Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

• The U.S. Department of Justice, legacy INS, and the Department of Homeland Security have engaged HIRC in the training of immigration judges, asylum officers, and supervisors on issues related to asylum law.

• HIRC provides advice, support, and supplemental services to advocates around the United States.

Scholarship

• HIRC published the first major treatise on U.S. asylum law, Law of Asylum in the United States.

The new and updated edition of Deborah Anker’s Law of Asylum in the United States has just been released, and is available for purchase through Thomson West.

The book is a comprehensive treatise on U.S. asylum law and includes a detailed discussion of all the elements of the refugee definition: the meaning of well-founded fear, persecution, and the five grounds (race, religion, nationality, social group membership, and political opinion). It also discusses withholding of removal protection and protection under the Convention Against Torture. The book describes, interprets, and provides extensive authority, synthesizing different strands and sources of U.S. domestic law, with references to international sources. It covers basic procedures for applying for asylum and related relief, and it reviews other forms of protection available to asylum seekers.

For a full list of HIRC publications, see Professor Deborah Anker's faculty website.