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Asylum
Crimes
Date and Time:
10/10/2024 11:00am to 12:30pm PDT
Recorded Date:
10/10/2024
Place:
Online
Registration Deadline:
Thursday, October 10, 2024 - 11:00am
Presenter:
Aruna Sury
Jehan Laner
MCLE:
1.5 CA (Qualifies for Legal Specialization Credit) & 1.5 TX
Level: Beginner

The Immigration and Nationality Act states that any noncitizen in the United States may apply for asylum. However, the statute contains several bars to receiving asylum, including the one-year bar, the firm-resettlement bar, and the particularly serious crime bar. The bars can apply even where the applicant proves that they are a refugee, in that they have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of a protected ground. It is therefore crucial to be knowledgeable about the bars and how they can apply in our clients’ cases, even when they have established each of the elements of an asylum claim. This webinar will discuss the statutory bars to asylum and provide practical guidance on how to screen clients for potential bars that may apply to them. With this information, practitioners will be armed with the relevant information necessary to effectively prepare and strategize with clients who may have an asylum claim.

Presenters

Aruna Sury

Aruna Sury is an immigration attorney with vast experience in removal defense, immigration consequences of crimes, and federal appeals. She is based in Seattle, WA and provides consultation and litigation support to attorneys throughout the country. Through ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program, Aruna provides legal guidance to criminal defense and immigration counsel. She regularly contributes to ILRC publications by authoring and updating content that enables practitioners to provide high quality representation to their clients. Aruna also presents ILRC trainings and CLE courses on a variety of topics.

Since obtaining her law degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001, Aruna has dedicated her career to the areas of immigration and civil rights in various settings in San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin. She has worked in law firm and solo practice environments as well as in non-profit and public organizations, including Washington Defender Association, University of Washington, Kids in Need of Defense, and Political Asylum Project of Austin (now American Gateways). Aruna’s personal interest is in immigrants’ due process rights, particularly the right to effective counsel and expansive access to judicial review. She has secured published and unpublished Ninth Circuit decisions in these and other areas. She has also successfully litigated cases in the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits.

Jehan Laner

Growing up in a family and community of immigrants, Jehan is deeply committed to defending the human rights of all people. Jehan joined the ILRC in June 2022.  Prior to joining the ILRC, Jehan represented detained and non-detained immigrants in removal proceedings at Pangea Legal Services and as an Immigration Legal Fellow with Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. Jehan also fought for policies to disentangle local law enforcement from immigration enforcement, as a Ford Fellow with Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus’s Criminal Justice Reform program. 

Jehan received her J.D. from New York University Law School. During law school, Jehan was a student advocate for two years in the Immigrant Rights Clinic where she defended immigrants facing deportation.  In the clinic, she represented asylum seekers in immigration court in New York and Texas and co-authored amicus briefs before the Eight Circuit and Board of Immigration Appeals. Jehan speaks Spanish fluently.