HIRC & IDP Release “Particularly Serious Crime” Bars Report and Chart

Via the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program

Source: Pixabay

On September 20, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program’s Crimmigration Clinic and the Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) issued two new resources for advocates and attorneys defending the rights of immigrant fighting removal to countries where they will be persecuted:

• United States Failure to Comply with the Refugee Convention: Misapplication of the Particularly Serious Crime Bar to Deny Refugees Protection from Removal to Countries Where Their Life or Freedom is Threatened
  • This report examines how U.S. implementation and interpretation of the “particularly serious crime” bar to withholding of removal and asylum in the U.S. fails to comply with the Refugee Convention. It also looks at how the U.S. diverges from the standards and practice of the international community and other countries.
• “Particularly Serious Crime” Bars on Asylum and Withholding of Removal: Legal Standards and Sample Case Determinations
  • This is a resource that will aid in the legal representation of immigrants in criminal and removal proceedings. Specifically, this chart will help attorneys evaluate whether a criminal conviction constitutes a “particularly serious crime” barring asylum or withholding of removal.

Phil Torrey, HIRC Managing Attorney and supervisor of the Crimmigration Clinic, helped create these resources, along with HLS law students Clarissa Lehne and Colin Poirot.