Center for International Asylum Evidence Advocacy (CIAEA)
From left to right: Ian Epstein, Paul Stibbe, Emily Eisenhart, Galya Ruffer, and Ashley Bell
Founded in the Spring of 2009, the Center for International Asylum Evidence Advocacy (“CIAEA”) works at the cross-section of the legal and academic communities to build international networks for asylum evidence documentation and alliances. While evidentiary issues are paramount in successful asylum advocacy and legal representation, legal advocates must focus on the legal basis of the asylum claim and have limited resources to gather evidence of country conditions, practices of persecution in particular sites of political turmoil and cultural differences and experiences of asylum seekers. The lack of knowledge with particular country contexts and availability of in-country resources often hinders the way in which legal advocates use evidence to substantiate an asylum claim. The “evidence gap” has undermined the overall credibility of asylum seekers and has contributed to the increasing “criminalization” of the asylum process. Through advocacy studies, documentation projects and collaborations with the legal community, the CIAEA works to expand the approaches, networks and availability of evidence in asylum cases.
Working in collaboration with our partner legal organizations, the CIAEA draws upon the knowledge and training of International and Area Studies undergraduate students who work to locate experts in the United States, establish in-country relationships with NGOs and attorneys, provide information about in-country media resources in foreign languages, write reports on country conditions that respond to the specific evidentiary issues in a case and provide suggestions about how to best access documents and other forms of corroborative evidence in countries that have been identified to be of key concern. In addition, through the CIAEA student affiliates program, students who are studying or interning abroad assist in the collection of affidavits and other documents in support of specific asylum cases. |
