Dear Asylum Lawyers:

I get a request to work on your cases as an expert witness about 2-3 times a month, sometimes more frequently. You generally have very compelling cases, and are dedicated to your asylum clients, whether you are a student, a full-time cause attorney, or a corporate lawyer taking on a pro-bono case in an effort to cleanse your soul. And while I empathize with your clients' situations, I have deeply ambivalent feelings about doing asylum work. The practice of asylum reinforces a narrative that I find profoundly offensive, in which other states and cultures are painted as egregious human rights offenders (which of course often states are, but never precisely following the simplistic narrative allowed by the stylized theater of the law and the court), and the United States, by contrast, is painted as a human rights savior--the asylum-granting land of justice. This contrasts with the reality in which the United States is often directly responsible for human rights abuses suffered by asylum applicants at the hands of foreign states. The U.S. federal court performance of asylum granting ritually exculpates it for this role.

I have a full-time job, and spend the equivalent of another full-time job in solidarity work that I do find meaningful, legitimate and effective. Given how little I believe individual asylum cases can actually do in terms of directly challenging the political causes of human rights violations in Honduras, acting as an expert witness has remained a low priority for me. That said, I have taken on a few cases a year for the past decade. And as you know (if you are one of the people writing me requesting my help), a majority of the clients for whom I have testified on gang, domestic abuse, and LGBTQ-related persecution in Honduras have been granted asylum.

So if you are writing me requesting help, chances are the answer will be no. That said, I myself am urgently seeking legal help for a friend, and would gladly take on your case (or cases—I'm open to negotiation) pro-bono if you can secure for me the services of a personal injury lawyer or any litigator in Colorado—preferably in one of the larger cities—willing to take on a personal injury case for assault and battery on a pro-bono basis. Liability is clear cut and injury is severe, but the defendant has few if any assets.

Respectfully yours,
Adrienne Pine