She got an idea, found a friend to go to Jordan with her and now runs a new legal aid business helping Iraqis convince the US State Department and Homeland Security that Iraqi clients need to get to the US.
From Connecticut Law Tribune:
It started at Yale Law School
So then Heller and a Yale Law School classmate, Jonathan Finer, decided the next semester to start the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project to help Iraqi citizens on the run gain official refugee status either in America or in another country.
They were onto something.
IRAP is the only such project in America devoted to helping refugee Iraqi’s settle elsewhere, and roughly 100 Yale law students volunteered that first year.
Now there are ten Law Schools involved
Heller never imagined how fast the project would grow. Already 10 other law schools, including New York University, University of California-Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania, have started taking on cases. Two more law schools will start up in the fall.
At Yale, students can participate in the project through a seminar. During the academic year, Heller commutes to New Haven from New York City once a week to teach alongside clinical professor Michael Wishnie.
Through fellowship and grant funds, Heller opened a main office for IRAP last year at the Urban Justice Center in New York City. She hopes additional funds would allow her to hire a full-time staff attorney in addition to herself.
Heller estimates volunteer supervising attorneys and students have donated $2.4 million worth of legal help. Project volunteers help prepare visa applications, submit appeals, and try to successfully negotiate the resettlement process, an intimidating process for the Iraqi’s.
Helping them prove their persecution claim
The father, who had been kidnapped and tortured, fled Iraq and found a temporary haven in Jordan. But the family had trouble proving it had been persecuted, and its initial application for U.S. refugee status was denied.
Homeland Security relented when the daughter got sick
But the daughter had health problems, and that turned into a silver lining. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security relented after the girl had a series of epileptic seizures. Once the family won their appeal, IRAP got the girl free medical treatment with a local neurologist.
Makes me wonder how all this works with the International Organization for Migration which has a federal contract to do this same work in Jordan?