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What We Do

IRAP facilitates the following ongoing volunteer efforts and programs:

Individual Legal Representation for Refugees

IRAP is the first organization to provide comprehensive legal representation to individual refugees seeking resettlement. IRAP has successfully resettled more than 400 refugees in life or death situations, including children with medical emergencies, women who are survivors of domestic and sexual violence and survivors of torture. IRAP is currently working on the cases of more than 200 families.

IRAP has chapters at nine law schools, eight in the United States, and one at the University of Jordan in Amman. Law students work in pairs, under the supervision of pro bono attorneys from private firms. They prepare visa applications, submit appeals, and advocate and empower our clients to successfully negotiate the resettlement process. Until September 2010, IRAP was entirely run by volunteer law student directors. IRAP has taken on more than 200 cases. Now with a full team dedicated to IRAP in addition to our extensive network of volunteers, we hope to expand the number of cases we can tackle and to more aggressively advocate for the rights of Iraqi refugees.

Resources for legal advocates are available here.

Fact-Finding and Policy Advocacy

Because IRAP handles so many individual cases, our law students and lawyers have a unique insight into refugee processing. We utilize the knowledge gained from our individual cases to advocate for specific legal reforms to systems of refugee and Special Immigrant Visa processing in the United States. Students from different chapters also take on specific fact-finding projects, travelling to the Middle East and doing research in the US, including:

  • Applicable labor rights for third country nationals working on US bases in Iraq
  • The right of Iraqi interpreters to recover workers’ compensation for injuries received in the line of duty
  • The protection of child trafficking victims in Iraq and Syria

Learn more about our policy advocacy work.

Refugee Roadmap

Refugee Roadmap assists Iraqi refugees in the United States by answering their questions about life in America and highlighting their accomplishments so that other refugees can benefit from their experience. The project is sustained by volunteers from different countries and different faiths. Volunteers include students, retirees, professionals, Iraq war veterans and previously resettled refugees. They share the experience of living in the US and a desire to help newly arrived Iraqi refugees. Volunteers answer questions and participate in a team effort to provide Iraqi refugees with a roadmap for navigating life in America.

Learn more about the Refugee Roadmap.

Overseas Clinical Legal Education to Ensure Refugee Rights

IRAP partners with the University of Jordan in Amman on the first clinical legal education program in the Kingdom of Jordan. IRAP students from Yale Law School travel to Jordan twice a year to conduct trainings with Jordanian law students. Law students from both countries then work together to coordinate comprehensive legal advocacy on behalf of IRAP clients. IRAP expects to launch a second clinical program in Cairo beginning in the fall of 2011.

Learn more about these trainings.