IRAP is excited to share a profile of the organization and its work published this weekend in the New York Law Journal. The article charts the arc of IRAP’s development and highlights the critical impact IRAP makes on the lives of its clients. Members of IRAP’s team, including IRAP’s Director, Becca Heller, were interviewed for the piece. “[In the United States] we like to talk about how our refugee program is the humanitarian arm of our foreign policy,” said Heller, “but if that’s true, it needs to behave in a
humanitarian way.”
The article walks readers through IRAP’s evolution, from its founding at Yale Law School in 2008 to the expansion of its team in 2014: the organization has doubled its staff over the past year. The piece maps the ins and outs of IRAP’s unique, student-driven model of providing legal assistance, foregrounding a number of illustrative client stories. It also delves into the far-reaching policy reforms that IRAP works hard to promote, highlighting in particular IRAP’s current efforts to ensure access to legal counsel for refugees applying for resettlement, and IRAP’s ongoing call to initiate in-country refugee processing in Erbil, Iraq, where many of the most vulnerable Iraqis could safely pursue their visa applications.
As we look back on 2014 and gear up for a new year and heightened goals, we’re thrilled that the New York Law Journal has captured IRAP’s success thus far, as well as its huge potential to continue saving lives in the future. We hope you’ll read this piece to further deepen your understanding of IRAP’s impact, and that you’ll share it with others in your network!