• Five years after opening its doors, Asylum Access Thailand has provided individualized legal counsel and/or representation for a landmark 900 cases!

• ED Emily Arnold-Fernandez is featured in the California Bar Journal on the 20th anniversary of the Jack Berman Award. She was honored as a recipient in 2011 for her work with Asylum Access.

• Asylum Access’s San Francisco office will be moving from downtown to Oakland this February.

• Asylum Access Tanzania received training on coping with the emotional content of client interviews from Dr. Weinstein at the Psychological Services International (PSI).

• Asylum Access is among The Global Journal’s Top 100 NGOs 2013. Find out more or read the feature article here.

• Overseas Operations Director Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter authored an Op-Ed in the Huffington Post on NGO accountability. “Smaller, Younger NGOs to Davos: “We Have a Few Tips Too” was inspired by a debate at the Davos Open Forum, which runs parallel to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting. Read it here.

• Asylum Access has been recommended for official Consultative Status with ECOSOC at the UN. This means, if successful, we will be able to comment on the record and hold countries accountable on refugee rights.

• In the third of our quarterly webinar series, Asylum Access Global Policy Advocacy Director Jessica Therkelsen shared our global advocacy work and priorities for the year this January.

• Asylum Access Thailand trained another 20 refugee community interpreters, who will help our clients access legal assistance in their native language. With refugees speaking a dozen or more languages in Bangkok, interpreters are key to our work.

• Asylum Access launches a Global Refugee Work Rights Survey to gather data on refugee work rights. Access the survey here.
  

• Asylum Access Ecuador filed a Habeus Corpus on behalf of 17 individuals concerning rights violations in immigration detention. The judge ruled that the detention of the migrants in question would be replaced with the option of presenting oneself to the provincial head of migration every 10 days. Read more about this story here.

Quarterly Figures at a Glance

In Ecuador, we assisted a total of 1101 refugees directly, providing 583 new clients with individualized legal assistance, and 518 with community legal education.

In Tanzania, we assisted a total of 98 refugees, providing 67 new clients with individualized legal assistance and 31 with community legal education.

In Thailand, we assisted a total of 175 refugees, providing 151 new clients with individualized legal assistance and 24 with community legal education.

Published February 2013