Yale Law School

IRAP was founded at Yale Law School in September of 2008. Since that time, more than 150 YLS students have participated in IRAP, predominantly in one of four areas.

Legal: Yale IRAP’s Legal team assists Iraqi refugees applying for resettlement in life or death situations in the Middle East. Our clients are children with medical emergencies, families who have suffered severe persecution or torture, women who suffer domestic abuse or forced prostitution, and other urgent cases referred to us by NGO’s and our staff on the ground in the Middle East. Yale IRAP’s legal team assists with all phases of the refugee resettlement process, including: registration as a refugee with UNHCR and navigating the UNHCR referral process, applications directly to the IOM for Priority-2 Refugee Status or to the U.S. Embassy for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV), and Requests for Review of worthy cases that have denied resettlement by USCIS.

Policy Advocacy: The Yale Policy team draws from our legal expertise to recommend low-cost but important policy solutions to facilitate the processing of Iraqis and other refugees. The policy team has coordinated NGO recommendations on the Special Immigrant Visa process, commented on the Request for Review process for denied applicants, and organized lobbying trips to Washington DC. We also plan to coordinate an all-IRAP chapter DC conference in the fall.

Community Advocacy: The Community Advocacy team works with recently resettled Iraqi refugees in the CT area to help them achieve better employment prospects and long-term success. To that end, we run an employment clinic at the local refugee resettlement agency, conduct focus groups and surveys, and build relationships with the local Iraqi refugee community to identify and respond to needs as they arise.

University of Jordan Law School Clinical Legal Education Program: Yale Law School signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Jordan Law School in January of 2009, in order to launch a cooperative program between the schools dedicated to providing legal assistance to Iraqi refugees in Jordan. As part of this program, YLS students travel to Amman, Jordan, twice per year to conduct trainings with their colleagues at the University of Jordan Law School. YLS students also partner with UJLS students to work on their individual IRAP cases. This is the first such clinical collaboration in the Kingdom of Jordan.

http://www.law.yale.edu/