CALS Students Win Asylum for CAR Refugee

Left to Right: Brittany Hightower (3L), Morgan Kokolika-Ngbalet (client), and Mark Doss (2L), look over their case file, the basis for their successful appearance in Immigration Court.Not many Georgetown Law students devoted their fall semester to learning about the Central African Republic (CAR)—deciphering the social and political history of that troubled land, exploring its lackluster human rights record, and mastering the few safe procedures for extracting evidence about those abuses for presentation in U.S. Immigration Court.  But Brittany Hightower (3L) and Mark Doss (2L), working within the Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), accomplished precisely that. In the process, they rescued their client from the prospect of deportation back to CAR and probably saved his life.

“I was excited to be a part of CALS because students in the clinic are in charge of and responsible for such high-stakes cases,” said Doss.  “But I was also terrified because losing a case meant that the client would be deported and face further persecution or even death.”

Hightower and Doss enrolled in CALS hoping to learn about immigration law, develop litigation skills, and serve a client in peril.  At the start of the semester, they were assigned to represent Morgan Kokolika-Ngbalet, a young human rights activist who had been arrested, detained, beaten, and threatened with death by the dictatorial regime of CAR President Francoise Bozize.  Kokolika had become energized to follow in his parents’ perilous footsteps in resisting the government’s repression—his father had fled the country years earlier due to persecution, and his mother had been killed by the notorious Presidential Guard for her activism.  Like her, Kokolika joined the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and became an outspoken advocate for reporting, documenting, and exposing the regime’s notorious abuses.

Those activities infuriated the government, and the Presidential Guard responded with characteristic brutality.  As Kokolika and three of his FIDH colleagues were returning from a fact-finding mission in April 2008, a unit of the Presidential Guard intercepted them, beat and abducted them, and drove them to a detention center.  There, the four activists were confined for two days in a small, windowless cell, denied any food or water, and repeatedly beaten three or more times each day. During the beatings, the guards interrogated them about FIDH, demanding to know who the leaders were, insulting them, and insisting that they abandon their activities.

Eventually, Kokolika escaped and went into hiding.  With his father’s assistance, he managed to flee CAR—an unusually difficult process because the U.S. embassy does not issue visas—so he had to travel via neighboring Cameroon.  During this time, he learned that CAR government authorities had issued a summons, and then an arrest warrant, for him,which he knew would likely lead to further arrest, detention, interrogation, torture, and possibly death.

“Recognizing that Morgan’s life depended on winning this case, Mark and I felt a daunting sense of responsibility,” said Hightower.  “But Morgan was such a source of inspiration. He always said that he couldn’t just stand by when there was something he could do to fight injustice in his country. That mentality really pushed us to do everything we could to win his case.”

Kokolika applied for asylum in the United States, a status that provides protection for those who face persecution in their homelands on account of race, religion, political opinion, or other specified factors. Unfortunately, his application was denied by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and, even more unfortunately, his original application was rife with errors and falsehoods.

Doss and Hightower therefore faced the stiff challenge of building a persuasive case while having to undo the adverse effects of the client’s earlier untruths.  In the course of the semester, they undertook all the lawyering tasks necessary to build a typical case from start to finish. They interviewed the client multiple times to gather the true and detailed facts of his case; they meticulously investigated the human rights conditions in CAR; they researched the applicable asylum law and wrote a substantial brief; they located crucial witnesses, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial Killings, who was one of the few experts on CAR; they accumulated documents from frightened witnesses still in CAR; and they compiled a 576-page stack of exhibits to present to Immigration Court.

“CALS students perform such heroic efforts because the cases are so demanding; we have to carry a significant burden of proof in immigration court,” said Professor David Koplow, CALS director for the Fall 2011 semester.  “Our students have proven to be incredibly dedicated, to sustain the long hours necessary to build the case, and they have developed the talent to be able to pull all the strings together in court on the day of the hearing.”

When Hightower and Doss went to Immigration Court in Arlington, Va., on Nov. 29, 2011, they faced stiff opposition from a well-prepared DHS trial counsel, who refused to concede any facts or to “narrow the issues” before the hearing.  In a formal judicial proceeding that lasted more than three hours, Hightower and Doss sat at the counsel table with their client and conducted the entire hearing.  They presented the direct examination and the defense of the cross examination, argued over the admissibility of the documents, and delivered the closing argument.

Reflecting upon the semester’s experience, Doss commented, “Before participating in CALS, I never had any real litigation experience.  The clinic’s supervisors did an excellent job of teaching me a wide range of lawyering skills.  Going into the hearing, I felt prepared and ready to advocate for Morgan, and he was confident in Brittany and me.”

The clinic carries 10 credits, and is offered in both the spring and fall semesters; students are expected to devote an average of 35 hours per week to CALS activities.

“I chose to come to Georgetown in large part so I could participate in CALS, and the experience was even better than I expected,” concluded Hightower.  “It was one of the most challenging and demanding tasks I have ever attempted. But the amount I learned, the amount of fun I had, and the sense of accomplishment in winning asylum for a person like Morgan was more than worth all the long hours and stress.”

For more information on CALS, email calsclinic@law.georgetown.edu or visit law.georgetown.edu/clinics/cals.