25 Mar Getson & Schatz, P.C. Wins 2 Gang-Based Asylum Cases for Unaccompanied Minors
Our Philadelphia immigration lawyers successfully won two gang-based asylum cases involving unaccompanied minors in front of the Asylum Office in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Both were hard cases to win because our clients feared to go back to Guatemala because of gang-related violence. Winning a grant of asylum based on gang-related violence can be very difficult in the United States, especially if the Applicant was not directly harmed or threatened by gang members.
Our law firm considers preparation the key to a successful asylum application. We won these cases because we asked our clients an exhaustive series of questions to prepare them for the interviews, primed their mother for the same interview, and even called relatives living in Guatemala to obtain further information about their cases. It is often misunderstood by undocumented parents of unaccompanied minors that one is an unaccompanied minor even if they are living with their parents in the United States so long as they crossed the border without their parents. We argued that our clients were close family members of victims of gang violence and thus deserved asylum because our clients were likely to be tortured or killed if forced to return to Guatemala. We accompanied our clients to the asylum interview and based on our knowledge of asylum law and the extensive evidence we submitted in support of their applications, our clients were granted asylum.