Matthew Pryor has won a number of pro bono asylum cases, including one Seventh Circuit victory. He says it is important to remember the human story behind each asylum seeker as they navigate the court system.

Pryor is an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he also practices environmental litigation. 

When did you take on your first pro bono case dealing with asylum?

My first asylum case was in law school. I had two of them, one during my second year and one during my third year. I got a case through NIJC within a few weeks of starting [at Latham & Watkins] in October 2005.

What made you want to get involved with asylum cases in law school?

There is a professor named James Hathaway who wrote the book The Law of Refugee Status and he was one of the tenured instructors at Michigan. I took his class, he was incredible. I'd had an interest in human rights law, and, because of Prof. Hathaway's course, I ended up drafting a paper on environmental refugees - understanding environmental issues when it comes to asylum, and how the effects of global warming are creating environmental refugees.  My interest in asylum law was definitely piqued after that course.

What are some of the biggest challenges when you take an asylum case?

It varies depending on whether the client is detained or not. In our most recent one, which is still ongoing, our client was just recently released after 22 months of detention. The challenge is helping keep the client's spirits up but their expectations realistic, because the immigration court system moves very slowly. When you are working with people from other countries, and especially ones who didn't enter the country legally, and they find themselves being detained and their liberties taken away from them, it can be very confusing to them. It doesn't make sense to them why it takes several months and maybe even a year to go from one court to another.  It is also hard, if not impossible, to explain to them why the U.S. government put them in detention when they came here to get help from that same government.

In this most recent case, the hardest thing by far was helping our client to stay sane and to make sure that he was getting the necessary emotional outlets. We set up a therapist to meet with him a couple of times and then we participated in a weekly call with him and the therapist. We would update him on what was going on with the legal aspects of the case, and then we would patch the therapist in and let her talk with our client for 15-20 minutes.  She helped him control his fear, his exasperation, and his justifiable impatience with the asylum process and with being detained.  He was six or seven hours outside of Chicago so we couldn't see him that often which was very unfortunate. That was the hardest thing I ever had to deal with in terms of a client, asylum or not. Just helping him understand our system and helping him be patient and stay optimistic so that he didn't just decide, "you know what, I'd rather just go back to my home country even if I'm going to potentially get hurt or killed because I can't stand being detained here anymore."  Right before the Seventh Circuit granted his appeal, he was close to going home.  I'm just glad he didn't lose hope and that he is as strong a person as he is.

You said that was a particularly difficult case, what would you say was a rewarding experience you have had?

That same case was incredibly rewarding. We won a Seventh Circuit appeal and got him released from detention after 22 months. When I picked him up at immigration court after his release a few weeks ago, we walked outside and got a piece of pizza. It was amazing. He finally got to talk to his parents for the first time in 22 months. I actually just got off the phone with him and he told me about that conversation with his parents.  He said that he had to buy two 20 minute phone cards because his parents, for the first 20 minutes were just crying because they were so happy to hear from him. They had no clue what was going on with him in the United States. He hadn't been able to speak directly with them and explain what he had been going through. He could tell them bits and pieces through a letter to a mutual friend, but he wasn't actually able to speak to them or write to them directly. He was afraid that if he wrote them directly it would put them in danger.

What advice would you give to other attorneys who are considering taking on immigration cases in their pro bono work?

These cases can take a lot of work and time because you're not just dealing with legal aspects, you're dealing with a human being who is in a foreign country, and who usually doesn't know much about U.S. society or know anybody here. There is a lot of hand-holding that needs to happen. You're not just getting them asylum so that they can be here, you're actually helping them change their life entirely, and it takes time. You can't just assume somebody else is going to take care of that. The non-legal aspects of the case are almost as important as their legal representation.