Political Asylum and Immigrants’ Rights

Individual Asylum Cases

Asylum Client Achieves Education, Career Dreams

A Sidley team in Washington, D.C. and Chicago represented a young woman from Afghanistan who fled her home country because she was targeted by the Taliban for pursuing her education. In August 2024, the team successfully obtained approval of her application for permanent U.S. residence and the client received her permanent residence card. Sidley previously represented the client in her successful application for U.S. asylum.

“Since 2016, the Sidley team has profoundly impacted my life. Their commitment and expertise secured a successful outcome in my asylum case in 2022, leading to my green card approval in 2024. As an international student, achieving my academic and professional goals would have been nearly impossible without their guidance. Their support allowed me to access opportunities typically unavailable to international students, such as internships and job experiences that were essential for completing my undergraduate studies and gaining admission to a prestigious graduate program. I went on to earn a PhD in biomedical engineering, where I developed an innovative smart implantable device for women with stress urinary incontinence. Since early 2024, I have been part of a small team at an early-stage startup, leading the research and development of an innovative skin adhesive. My status in the United States has been instrumental in advancing my professional career and allowing me to give back to society. I am immensely grateful to Sidley and their pro bono team for their unwavering commitment to my case and to helping others.”
— Our Client

Helping a Client Flee Gang Violence

Sidley lawyers represented a client who came to the U.S. after being threatened by a gang in his hometown in Guatemala. The Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the decision withholding removal of a client and is giving him a new hearing with an opportunity to produce new evidence. The case was referred by Amica Center for Immigrant Rights.

KIND Special Immigrant Juvenile Status Victories

Working together with Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Sidley’s Washington, D.C. office represented 24 individuals in 2024 on cases involving Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a form of immigration relief provided to abused, neglected, or abandoned children. This relief requires filing a custody or guardianship petition in state court, followed by applications to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Status for SIJS and adjustment of status, all while defending children in their removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

In one case, Sidley lawyers helped a single mother raising three daughters on a single income in Virginia to obtain SIJS and work permits for all three children. The Sidley team successfully won sole physical and legal custody for the mother, thereby protecting the children and mother from the prior history of abuse by the father.

In another matter, our client fled El Salvador as a teenager after he was approached by gang members on his way to and from school, pressuring him to join the gang. He refused but grew fearful that he was putting his family at risk. His mother could not protect him in El Salvador, and he undertook the dangerous journey to the United States. Sidley represented him from 2019 until he received his lawful permanent residency in 2024, allowing him to move forward with his life without the imminent danger he faced in his native country.

Sidley also represented another client from El Salvador who experienced threats from gangs at a very young age. His mother fled to the U.S. when he was only two years old to escape abuse from his biological father, but she then abandoned him. He spent his early childhood living with his grandmother. When he was about 10 years old, his grandmother began receiving threats from gangs demanding extortion payments and threatening harm to him if she did not pay the extortion fee. He fled to the U.S. seeking safety. Sidley began representing him on his SIJS case in 2018, and he received his lawful permanent residency in 2024.

“Sidley Austin attorneys are not only outstanding legal representatives, but they are also keenly aware of their clients’ needs and do not shy away from advocating for resources to help them navigate challenges they often face. … The overarching quality that stands out among all Sidley volunteers is their unwavering commitment to their clients, which has improved the lives of many children.”
— Nirupa Narayan, Vice President for Pro Bono Partnerships, KIND

Family Reunification Task Force Appeals

In late 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union secured a landmark class settlement for families affected by child separation policies at the U.S. border. As a follow-on to that effort, Sidley partnered with Together & Free (T&F) to help families excluded from class membership in their appeals to the U.S. government’s Family Reunification Task Force (FRTF). Sidley and T&F recently prevailed in three cases, which were handled by cross-office teams of Sidley lawyers and legal professionals.

In the first case, after the client was denied class membership, on January 8, 2025, the FRTF agreed with Sidley’s argument that the client should be included in the class because he had only non-violent re-entry offenses and decades’ old traffic violations. As a result, the client, who now resides in Honduras, was reunited with his son.

Another case involved a grandfather who was forcibly separated from his grandson. Prior to this separation, the grandfather had filed for legal guardianship of his grandson in his native country of Guatemala. A Guatemalan court had granted the request for guardianship after determining that the grandson’s biological mother had abandoned him. The U.S. government twice denied class membership because of alleged insufficiency of guardianship status. In November 2024, an independent adjudicator ruled in favor of Sidley’s client on appeal and granted the grandfather class membership and awarded costs.

In the third case, the client was denied class membership twice by FRTF. On February 26, 2025, an independent adjudicator agreed with Sidley’s argument that the client should be included in the Class because there is no requirement that separation, as opposed to apprehension, specifically occur at the Southwest Border, and further awarded costs.

“The Sidley team stepped up to take on appeals of the Family Reunification Task Force’s decision to exclude certain potential Ms. L. Members from the Settlement Class. Preparing these appeals has been no small feat: these are completely novel appeals with no legal precedent, and they require precise, case-by-case treatment. Sidley has successfully and effectively navigated preparing these difficult cases, which often require complex legal analysis, obtaining criminal records, and working with the parents who have survived significant trauma to prepare compelling humanitarian statements. The Sidley team has handled unprecedented curveballs thrown at them in the case preparation process with grace, and time and again, they have obtained remarkably significant results for the parents who will now be able to reunify with their children.” — Erin Anderson, Special Projects Attorney, Together & Free

Clinic Work

Sanctuary for Families

A team of Sidley lawyers in New York worked together with Sanctuary for Families — a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence — to file asylum applications on behalf of several young girls and women from French-speaking African countries who had suffered or lived in fear of the trauma of female genital mutilation. These clients, some of whom were subjected to forced marriage and female genital mutilation at a very young age, also faced physical and mental mistreatment from their families and communities. After escaping their villages in the middle of the night, the girls and women journeyed to neighboring cities and countries by a mix of plane, car, bus, and walking before finally making their way to the U.S. border. The Sidley team, some of whom communicated with the clients in their native French, helped the girls and women file applications for asylum and prepare their personal affidavits, detailing the harm they had experienced in their home countries and their hope of finding a support system in the United States.

Catholic Charities of Houston

Lawyers from Sidley’s Houston office partnered with lawyers from two different corporate clients to help Catholic Charities of Houston prepare immigration petitions for 12 children.

National Immigrant Justice Center Clinic

Lawyers from Sidley’s Chicago office, together with lawyers from a corporate client, participated in a clinic with the National Immigrant Justice Center to help prepare green card applications for several clients who were evacuated from Afghanistan and brought to the United States by the U.S. military in 2021.