Tucked into sparsely furnished offices in New York’s Financial District, the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project is a remarkable program that is proving to be both a balm for our national honor and, in my view, a model for how law schools might evolve. Five years old last fall, IRAP brings together law firm lawyers and law students to counsel, on a pro bono basis, refugees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The conflict in Iraq may be ending, but a troubling refugee problem remains alive. According to United Nations and humanitarian group estimates, a few million Iraqis fled their homes during the war. Over the years, some sought asylum or other immigrant status in the United States, and, according to government reports, about 85,000 have been resettled here since 2007. Getting approval, though, means working through a multistep process during which the applicants must prove that they have been threatened because of their political, religious or social status, or have family in the U.S., or, under a special visa program, were employed by U.S. agencies—military, contractors or media. These are not easy burdens of proof—nor should they be—and they are complicated severely by language and cultural barriers, an opaque bureaucracy and an absence of legal counsel.
